Workshop Capacity building of co-applicants, Split 19 – 21 July 2017

The “Integrity Observer” project aims to improve transparency in managing of public goods and natural resources as well as to enable public participation and civil society organizations to propose, develop and monitor the managing policies. The project is being implemented, from the beginning of November 2015 till end of October 2017, jointly by 5 civil society organizations from 4 different counties in Croatia where project activities are carried out by the respective associations: Partnership for Social Development, Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Croatia, Association for Promotion of Human Rights And Media Freedoms – Cenzura Plus, Civil Rights Project Sisak and Women’s Association Vukovar. One of the activities within the project is capacity building of co-applicants participating in the project. Within this activity, a three-day workshop was organised from July 19-21, 2017 at the Art Hotel in Split. That workshop enabled strengthening the capacities of the associations in order to better understand the theoretical framework related to green procurement, concession awards, urban planning and public IT consultancy platform usage in order to make the acquired knowledge practically applicable. The emphasis in a three-day workshop is on public policy research and the writing of specific analyses and reports followed by the research implemented previously within the project. This activity will study the implementation of the Physical Planning Act and the Law on Concessions at the local level within 40 Municipalities and Cities in the Republic of Croatia and will be followed by a second national conference in Zagreb where research results as well as project results should be presented. Further, 5 local roundtables across Croatia will be organised, where the data obtained in the mentioned survey of local cities and municipalities, based on which the analysis was done, will be presented, as well as recommendations for further actions in order to improve transparency in the management of public goods and the natural resources locally.

The project is co-financed by the EU funds and the Office for Associations of the Government of the Republic of Croatia, contracted through the IPA 2012 program, i.e. IPA I Component – Assistance in Transition and Institution Building.