The meeting evolved around three themes: ongoing research and monitoring activities of the WeBER research team; research and results of the work done by WeBER platform members; activities and future plans of the MISA.
The meeting was opened by Simonida Kacarska, director of EPI, underlining the importance of the project and the conducting of the surveys, which encompass three perspectives of our society – CSO, citizens and civil servants. The surveys guided by the same methodology have been conducted on a regional level and as such represent a first of their kind. In continuation, Aleksandra Ivanovska, researcher in EPI, presented the preliminary results of the survey of civil servants and the survey of CSO representatives. The surveys have raised great interest, especially those focusing on the opinions of the civil servants which aimed to grasp the thoughts of the civil servants on the situation in the public sector regarding status of senior civil servants, remuneration, recruitment, and integrity. Following, Angel Mojsovski researcher in EPI presented the situation in Macedonia regarding the accountability of state administration bodies and the status and quality of the public services which are provided. He underlined that in the past 9 months the institutions have improved their practices by publishing relevant documents such as budgets, organigrams and annual reports but still do not have the habit of publishing ex-ante and ex-post analyses as well as relevant policy analyses. When it comes to service delivery, Mojsovski presented the results of the survey of the opinions of the public regarding administrative services, also underlining that on a regional level the highest rate of awareness for the existence of e-services has been observed in Macedonia (53%). During the second session, Gordana Stefkovska Veljanovska from the Center for Change Management, WEBER platform member presented their work in the area of administrative and legal protection of citizens and public administration employees as well as their report on the work of the commissions of second instance and administrative courts
Next, Aleksandar Nikolov from Association Zenith, Weber grantee, quite connected with the topic that was tackled by Mojsovski, presented the opinion of citizens regarding the provision of services but on a local level, by the municipality of Skopje.
Kristina Dimovska, representative of MISA, closed the session by elaborating on the future endeavours of the Ministry, especially in the area of provision of e-services, openness and transparency.