Successfully Held Local Forum: “Active Involvement of Stakeholders in Addressing Local Issues”
On April 3, 2025, at the Officers’ Hall in Bitola, the association Pro Local, with the support of the Municipality of Bitola, successfully organized the Local Forum on the topic “Active Involvement of Stakeholders in Addressing Local Issues”, as part of the project “Bitola 2.0 – A Digital Municipality Closer to Its Citizens.”
The event was opened by Emilia Geroska, President of Pro Local, and Borce Dimitrovski, Secretary of the Municipality of Bitola. They emphasized the importance of building partnerships between citizens and local authorities to more effectively address the challenges related to digitalizing municipal services.
The forum began with a presentation of the results of a citizen satisfaction survey on digital services in the Municipality of Bitola, delivered by Prof. Dr. Ana Sekulovska. This was followed by interactive working sessions, during which participants identified the key issues and challenges that citizens—particularly young people—face in using the municipality’s digital services.
The discussion focused on:
- Challenges in access to and functionality of digital services
- The need for increased awareness and digital literacy among citizens
- Deficiencies in communication between the administration and citizens via digital channels
As a final outcome, participants identified more than 20 concrete proposals for the development of IT tools aimed at accelerating the digitalization of public services in Bitola, in areas such as culture, transport, environment, and education.
The forum concluded with clearly defined next steps for continued collaboration among stakeholders and the development of mechanisms for transparent monitoring of progress.
This forum is part of the project “Bitola 2.0 – A Digital Municipality Closer to Its Citizens,” funded by the European Union and co-funded by the Austrian Development Agency, within the framework of the project “Western Balkan Enablers for Reforming Public Administrations – WeBER 3.0.” This initiative aims to create an enabling environment for civil society monitoring of public administration reform across the Western Balkan countries. The grant provider is the European Policy Institute (EPI) – Skopje.
The forum began with a presentation of the results of a citizen satisfaction survey on digital services in the Municipality of Bitola, delivered by Prof. Dr. Ana Sekulovska. This was followed by interactive working sessions, during which participants identified the key issues and challenges that citizens—particularly young people—face in using the municipality’s digital services.
Young people actively participate in shaping local policies through the regional youth platform
At the third meeting of the Regional Youth Platform, held on February 13, 2025, at the Officer’s House in Bitola, young people from the Pelagonia region actively debated key issues affecting them with the mayors, in the presence of the Ambassador of Switzerland, Mrs. Véronique Ullmann. The meeting was also attended by the Presidents of the Councils and representatives of the Municipal Councils.
The meeting provided an opportunity for exchanging ideas and jointly adopting concrete measures to be implemented in all nine municipalities by the end of the year. Discussions focused on local economic development, environmental protection, and improving health and fire safety.
As a result of the meeting, specific measures were adopted to be implemented across all nine municipalities by the end of the year, including the integration of organic waste into the circular economy, a pilot project for waste management in schools, fire safety education as part of extracurricular activities, organizing a regional youth entrepreneurship competition, and conducting business training for young entrepreneurs.
The Regional Youth Platform represents an innovative mechanism for participatory democracy, aimed at strengthening the participation of young people in local decision-making processes. This mechanism is being piloted within the framework of the project “Youth Policies Tailored to Young People,” implemented by Pro Local in cooperation with eight local civil organizations.
Ambassador Ullmann emphasized that the inclusion of young people in policy-making is essential for the development of local communities, stressing that their voices and ideas must be integrated into decision-making processes.
The project “Youth Policies Tailored to the Youth” is supported by the Government of Switzerland through the Civica Mobilitas program.
February, 2025
