Official announcement: WeBER 2.0 has begun!

We are proud to inform you that the WeBER Project has received financial support from the European Commission for its continuation and that in the next three years we will continue our work toward reformed public administrations in the Western Balkans.

Six organisations from the Western Balkans, members of the Think for Europe – TEN Network (European Policy Centre – CEP Belgrade, Institute for Democracy and Mediation – IDM Tirana, Insititute Alternative – IA Podgorica, Foreign Policy Initiative – FPI Sarajevo, Group for Legal and Political Studies – GLPS Pristina, European Policy Institute – EPI Skopje) coordinated by the European Policy Centre – CEP Belgrade, in partnership with the European Policy Centre – EPC from Brussels, and with financial support from the European Commission, will continue their work with a goal to further empower civil society organisations in the Western Balkans to engage in the design and implementation of public administration reform in line with the requirements in the EU accession process.

Guided by the SIGMA Principles, WeBER has pioneered an evidence-based civil society approach to monitoring the governments’ progress in PAR based on EU requirements. It has also built bottom-up reform demand by creating a regional WeBER Platform for PAR dialogue and by empowering CSOs through capacity building and consultation events and meetings. This has laid down foundations for the continuous involvement of civil society in PAR, relying on the regional approach and regionally comparable WeBER monitoring results.

Under the new name, Western Balkan Civil Society Empowerment for a Reformed Public Administration, the WeBER 2.0 design relies on the results of WeBER and published PAR Monitor reports. WeBER 2.0 continues the intervention logic developed and proven effective in the first project, namely that the creation of regional and local pressure and demand for PAR compliant with EU requirements/principles is the best (and perhaps only) way to ensure long-term effectiveness of the EU’s conditionality in this area and keep these reforms on track even beyond the point of achievement of EU membership by the WB countries.

The impact that WeBER 2.0 intends to create is an empowered civil society, armed with knowledge, skills and tools to monitor PAR and hold their national and local governments to account for the quality of policies they develop, services they provide and the overall management of the state and local governments and administrations.

WeBER 2.0 has begun in December 2019 and will last until  December 2022.