Empowerment through financial support for the priority activities of the municipalities

All 24 municipalities that will be part of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation project will be covered by the three capacity building components.
This component’s objective is to improve transparency and accountability of all municipal bodies and the citizen participation in setting priorities of local budgetary bodies.
Grants will be used to encourage municipalities to improve in a measurable way the relations of the councils with the citizens and the municipal executive bodies.
To receive these grants, all municipal bodies will be required to work in creating conditions for effective participation of citizens in municipal programs and budget preparation.
The empowering councillors component will be founded on the Swiss Development Cooperation and Development “Community Forums” program that was introduced as a mechanism to ensure the citizens participation in the decision making process in more than 2/3 of Macedonian’s municipalities. According to existing structures and methodology developed by SDC, grants will be distributed for projects defined as priority by both councillors and citizens.
The Financial support program will provide funds to selected municipalities up to 50,000 Swiss francs, for a maximum of three projects in each municipality. A total of 1 million two hundred thousand Swiss francs will be distributed to 24 municipalities throughout the duration of the project.
Although specific projects to be funded will be determined upon consultations among councillors, local administration and citizens of municipalities, they will need to address the priorities of the citizens as well as cross-cutting issues of gender equality, good governance, social inclusion and interethnic cooperation.
To ensure proper allocation of funds several control mechanisms will be applied such as the transfer of funds based on progress, unannounced checks will be carried out and a detailed and precise monitoring of the whole process.
Each approved project will have to meet several criteria, such as: establishing partnership between organizations and citizens; achieving tangible, practical and measurable results; be sustainable and continue to function once the project has ended; to exercise significant wider social impact on issues important for disadvantaged groups; to address equally the needs of men, women, different ethnic groups and to support their participation in the project implementation.
Examples of such projects are: care centres for the homeless; improvements to school infrastructure adapted to children with physical disabilities; inclusive youth centres and multi-cultural activities for young people; shelters and care centres for victims of gender-based and domestic violence; social protection programs for children and young people abusing drugs; social housing for orphans; people with disabilities, Roma and others; kindergartens and preschool children, especially in rural areas.