From total of 80 Local Self Governments (LSG) in Republic of Macedonia, 38 of them are considered as rural municipalities where according to official statistics, in 2010, 17.6% of population. Considering the system of fiscal decentralization, this LSGs remain with lowest funding and they can barely cover cost for staff members and usually they offer poor quality of services. Additional burden for citizens is that rural LSGs are not much transparent and accountable towards its citizens.
The websites of LSGs are barely updated or does not exists. There are few municipalities that use only one language, even though in those municipalities other ethnic groups live are in significant number. On the web sites there not, annual program and financial reports of the LSG as well as reports for public enterprises and public institutions. The local CSOs have not capacities to work with local officials on solving local challenges.
Expres Media-Skopke has been active form 2014 mostly working with LSGs in western part of Macedonia for better presentation of their work.The mission of the Exress Media is strengthening local democracy through increasing transparency od local institution and promotion of the on-line media.Theproject objective of this6 months long project is to improve practices of transparency of local government officials and to improve quality of the services offered to citizens in of three ruralLSGs inSkopje
Project Audience 3 rural self governments (Studecinami, Sopiste, Zelenikovo) in Skopje's Statistical Region in Republic of Macedonia Public institutions and public enterprises 5 local CSOs from three rural municipalities 10 local business
This project has provided additional documentation in a DOCX file (projdoc.docx).
