Together for Life Association, within the project "Transparent and accountable health systems in Albania", supported by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), organized the second workshop with civil society organizations in Albania.
In the form of a consultation roundtable on the thematic of transparency and accountability in the field of health, CSOs covering this and other fields reflected some of the challenges that civil society organizations face when it comes to their involvement in the budgeting process, as well as what can be done to promote accountability and transparency.
Among the key points that were highlighted during the roundtable regarding why the involvement of CSOs is of fundamental importance:
- To express the needs of different social groups at the policy-making level;
- To negotiate the allocation of public resources in function of the needs and concerns raised by civil society;
- To maximize equality in decision-making and to bring better results in the implementation of policies;
- To break the typical barriers of top-down budgeting by promoting the bottom-up budgeting approach;
- To empower the community to monitor public spending.
As for the challenges faced by CSOs, they are related to the lack of information regarding the laws of inclusion in budgeting consultations, as well as the lack of technical skills in the budget process. Attaching it to the lack of policy-making will, this part has a negative effect on the active involvement of civil society organizations in decision-making and, consequently, on the complete non-representation of the current needs of the target groups they represent.
On the other hand, many of the organizations are not invited to consultative processes or even when they are invited and present their proposals, they are not taken into account by the decision-makers, nor are they given an official explanation why they were not taken into account.
Organizations are often portrayed as "opponents" and this does not help in building a collaborative CSO-Decision Maker synergy.
- "What is a problem is that the ministries call the CSO as the "black sheep". For this reason, we are not taken into consideration and they continue with their own opinions".
- "Before, there were consultations with the CSO and due seriousness was given to them, but over time these became merely formal, not giving due importance".
Participating CSOs appreciated the organization of such roundtables as very necessary, first to create or strengthen networking between organizations for raising causes on critical issues and strengthening their monitoring capabilities, in order to promote accountability and transparency. On the other hand, these synergies will also serve to strengthen the trinorm Decision-Making-Accountability-Transparency.
