Specific aims of the project were:

• Improve the awareness and understanding of policy makers, civil servants as well as CSOs about the benefits and specific ways/tools of involving the civil society in policy monitoring and evaluation
• Ensuring effective involvement of civil society, particularly those organisations focusing on policy research, in policy monitoring and evaluation

Foundation for the Advancement of Economics (FREN) and European Policy Centre – CEP were jointly implementing project activities.

This project was funded by the European Union.

Članak Achieving Effective Policy Monitoring and Evaluation through Evidence Supplied by the Civil Society se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

This project was financially supported by The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Belgrade.European Policy Centre, together with Ecological Center Habitat from Vršac and Serbia on the Move implemented the project “Think-Act-Impact: Ensuring Improved Implementation of EU Directives on Environmental Impact Assessment in Serbia” during the following year. Project comprised a thorough research of problems and challenges in the implementation of environmental impact assessment with focus on local communities in order to provide solutions for overcoming the obstacles. Alongside research, educational-activist component was conducted in selected local communities together with local civil society organisations and citizens.

www.norveska.org.rs

Članak Think-Act-Impact: Ensuring Improved Implementation of EU Directives on Environmental Impact Assessment in Serbia se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Članak Support to the Public Administration Reform in Serbia, PROFID 2010-2013: Building Capacities for Impact Assessment of the Ministry of Interior’s Strategic Documents on the Environment se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

Europe Café represents a series of discussions taking place in a relaxed, dynamic and informal environment of a café setting. Europe Café revolves around the goal to discuss and exchange thoughts, questions and ideas on various topics in relation to Serbia’s EU integration process with stakeholders, decision makers, partner organisations, civil society organisations and the public.

The aim of Europe Café is to provide a platform for an open and prolific discussion which will yield new ideas for common efforts in advancing Serbia’s EU integration, inform the public about the particular aspects of the Serbia EU accession process and involve the relevant stakeholders into the debate.

Where does the idea come from?

Europe Café is designed according to the principles of the World Café method. This method ensures an effective and flexible format for hosting a series of discussions with a potentially large group of participants and can be modified to correspond to specific needs.

The basic model consists of five components:

1. Setting – café environment, small tables with up to four chairs, paper blocks and coloured pens and other optional items.
2. Welcome and Introduction – The host of the event is giving a warm welcome introductory note and introduces the participants to the context and setting
3. Small Group Rounds – On the roundtable three rounds of discussions take place in the average duration of 20 minutes. Once a round of discussion is over, the participants are free to move to other tables. Each table usually chooses one person as the “table host” who welcomes the next group and provides a brief update of the previous rounds.
4. Questions – The purpose of the each round is defined by the question placed to the table at the beginning of the round.  Questions may remain the same in different rounds or they can build upon each other and as the discussion progresses.
5. Harvest – Discussions at the small tables are wrapped up and insights presented to all participants in plenary, often using different tools or methods – flip charts, visual presentation etc.

What is the concept of Europe Café?

Europe Café takes place once every two to three months. Topics for each edition are consulted and agreed upon in coordination with numerous partners and stakeholders, in accordance with the relevance of the topic and participants’ expertise and interest. Even though Europe Café editions have so far been relatively limited in terms of size and audience (around 20 participants, invitation based), the concept allows for much larger participation: it could be also organised for the general public or other specific target groups (e.g. students, retirees, various stakeholders affected by the EU integration process in a particular manner, etc.). In the future, Europe Café is therefore expected to grow into an innovative and mobilising discussion forum for a wider public participation.

Europe Café discussions last approximately 2-3 hours. The EU Information Centre (EUIC) in Belgrade supports CEP’s Europe Café initiative, as its mission is to raise the general awareness and encourage a public debate on EU related issues.

Discussions in the previous editions

The first Europe Café was held on the 28th of March under the topic of human resources in EU integration, while the specific discussions of the four discussion tables revolved around sub-topics of EU negotiations and human resources, private sector and EU human resources, scholarships and diploma recognition and professional skills and education. The honorary guest was Mr Paul Demaret, the rector of the College of Europe at the time, a renowned post-graduate institution in European affairs. Other participants comprised of the officials from Serbian European Integration Office, other state institutions and agencies, Delegation of the European Union in Serbia and civil society organisations’ representatives.

The second Europe Café held on 19th June 2013 marked ten years of the European Council in Thessaloniki, where the grounds were laid for the contemporary relations between the European Union and the countries of the Western Balkans. The participants examined four subtopics: the messages and meaning of the Thessaloniki Summit, lobbying the EU accession agenda, the real role of regional cooperation in the EU accession process, and the problems pertaining to the free visa regime and the opportunities of lobbying for it on a regional level. This edition gathered representatives from the civil sector, diplomatic corps and high level civil servants.

Članak Europe Café se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

The aim of this project was to identify the problems and gaps in the policy making process in Serbia and provide recommendations on how to ensure better coordinated and more evidence-based policy making in Serbia, in light of the launch of accession negotiations between the EU and Serbia. Preliminary recommendations were presented and discussed with high-level stakeholders at the Conference in November 2013. Study Policy Making and EU Accession Negotiations – Getting Results for Serbia can be found in our Documentation Centre.

Our research was realised under the auspices of the bilateral project „Support to the EU integration process“ undertaken by GIZ and the Serbian European Integration Office (now Ministry of European Integration) in the period 2012-2015. The aim of the project was to improve the capacities of the Serbian government for the accession negotiation process on the selected chapters of the acquis.

Članak Policy Making System in Serbia and Its Potential Improvement in View of EU Accession Negotiations se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.

The goal of the project was to ensure sustainable forms of cooperation between SAI, civil society organisations and citizens through:

• the establishment of a more institutionalized cooperation in the common efforts to achieve government accountability, and
• the improvement of the management system of citizens’ requests for audit in order to increase citizens’ participation in audit process

This was the continuation of the successful cooperation between CEP and SAI which began in 2012 with the project Determining Condition for Improvement of work of the State Audit Institution of Serbia, assisted by the USAID JRGA.

This initiative was supported by the USAID Judicial Reform and Government Accountability Project (JRGA).

Članak Increasing Citizens’ Involvement in Achieving Government Accountability in Serbia se pojavljuje prvo na European Policy Centre.