Advocacy and Strategic Planning
In October 2006 the Institute for Regional and International Studies began the implementation of the project Citizens’ Audit – Enhancing Civil Participation in the Municipal Budgetary Process in Bulgaria.
The project is aimed at improving the participation of civil society in Bulgaria in public policy formation through the ‛budget advocacy‛ approach. This is necessitated by the fact that public budgets are a primary instrument of collection and allocation of resources and the citizenry has to ensure that redistribution is just, people-centered, transparent and accountable. This will be achieved through: a) improving civil society organizations understanding of the public budgets and the budgeting process through tailor-made training schemes; b) practically engaging the citizens in municipal budgeting process through several pilot-cases in two municipal centers – establishing citizens budget advocacy groups; c)analyzing the experience and drafting alternative budget and planning models to further replicate the project achievements.
The duration of the project is 12 months and is being implemented by IRIS in close co-operation with two regional nongovernmental organizations - Civic Association ‛Public Barometer‛, Sliven and Ethnic Cultural Studies Center, Razgrad.
This project is carried out with the financial support of the Trust for Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe.
The current project aims to contribute to more efficient citizen participation in this process and more broadly - to develop sustainable forms of dialogue between citizens and public officials.
The main goal of the project was to support IRIS’s institutional development and its capacity to participate, on the basis of its experience and expertise, in the formulation of new civic strategies for organisation, participation and raising accountability in decision-making – strategies reflecting the powerful and profound transformative processes in society that are in play over the last year or so.
This project aims to support participation via capacity-building for strategic planning and advocacy in NGOs in three Bulgarian cities where protesters in 2013 were especially active: Varna, Veliko Tarnovo and Blagoevgrad. Its outcome was a raised know-how and capability of NGOs to conduct advocacy campaigns and thus participate in a more organised and efficient manner in decision-making.
Институтът за Регионални и Международни Изследвания (ИРМИ), със съдействието на Тръста за гражданско общество в централна и източна Европа, проведоха през 2009 г. проект на тема: „Тренинг и социализация на млади ромски активисти в позиции на политическо и гражданско лидерство в българската държава и общество“ с продължителност една година.
The primary goal of the project was to strengthen democracy by facilitating effective representation of civil interests.
The aim of this project was to frame a perspective strategy for the policy development of the NGO sector in Bulgaria.