Description

Who is the proposal being submitted by? 

The proposal is being submitted by the Institute for Public Policies and Good Governance (IPPM), an Albanian NGO which address the significant need for good governance in Albania and in the Western Balkans Region. 
Its mission is to contribute in enhancing the public awareness for the challenges of good governance. 
Its objectives are developing and promoting good governance best practices in public and private sector, fostering public debate, bringing together in cooperation different interest groups for better governance, assisting the qualitative reformation of public sector and setting up a multi-stakeholder dialogue process. 

Which practice/innovation is being submitted and what is its purpose? 

During 2016-2018 the IPPM has been focused on the increase of citizens' awareness, training and participation on the process of local budgeting plan, execution and monitoring in order to advocate civic rights and responsive budget governance. 
Firstly, four categories were identified as potential ones to be trained and involved in all budget document preparation such as midterm plan, yearly execution and monitoring report. The groups consist on NGO, Media, business and young people. 
Secondly, a questionnaire had been distributed to find out the level of knowledge and the interest shown to be involved in the budgeting process by each group. 
Thirdly, each group was trained separately with specific analyzes related with budget issues for each of them. Youths were distinguished for the special interest to participate in the activities organized by IPPM within the framework of this project and were judged as the most potential group of interest to influence transparency and accountability growth by local government. 
Fourthly, a nucleus of young people was created to monitor the budgetary execution performance at local level with the main idea behind it to make youth a principal component for good governance. IPPM's experts have been engaged in one to one training of youth nucleus and building their capacities in order to reach the objective. 
Fifthly, youths have been able to analyze and prepare analytical reports and present them on the council meetings, where they have participated regularly. 
As the last step, trained youths have been able to lead public hearings held with other citizens of different age groups and professional backgrounds and municipality members and to address main findings of their budget analyses, as well as to open discussions related to these matters. 

Why is this an innovative practice?

This practice is considered to be an innovative one because it is based on a well structured step by step approach to train a potential group of society to achieve higher levels of transparency and accountability by the local government, whose absence seems to be a key obstacle to local democracy. During this process, the most potential group is determined, being finalized with the creation of a nucleus deeply involved in council meetings, info days, data analyzes and public hearing. This practice applies methods focusing on youth's active role in participating decision-making processes and building their capacities to be able to advocate for their rights in the context of their inclusion in budgeting processes, aiming to make them serve as a catalyst of active civic participation in monitoring the budget execution performance, vocally demand for more transparency, guaranteeing a long-lasting impact of this practice in sustainable capacity building for youth.