Month: September 2020

Skopje, September 30th, 2020

The Minister of Information Society and Administration, Jeton Shaqiri, addressed the e-conference  “Open Government Partnership – Dialogue on National 2021-2023 Action Plan“. The underlying aim of the event was to promote the OGP Initiative among civil society organizations, to inform on the benefits and the progress attained thus far, and to create space for discussion about future steps in co-creation of the new action plan.

“In the past several years, the Republic of North Macedonia noted progress in the fields that contribute to attainment of the basic Open Government Partnership principles. Numerous activities were taken to build partnering relations with citizens and companies in shaping national policies and creating the national legislation, strategies and initiatives. Such approach always contributes to attainment of good results and more quality legislation. What remains high on the priority list us improvement of all mechanisms that guarantee inclusion and partnering relations between institutions and the civil society sector as grounds for building a democratic society“, said Minister Shaqiri.

The Minister also highlighted that the past period notes success in expansion of this initiative in the Parliament as well. This success is expected to be further expanded during the upcoming period by involvement from the judiciary, with the new Action Plan covering the following two years.

The е-conference included discussions on the topics: Benefits from RIA Proccess, Importance of Involvement in this Process, Steps for Preparation of 2021 – 2023 OGP AP and Priority Areas to be Worked On.

The following participants also addressed the conference: Miki Milkovski – Deputy Secretary General of the Parliament of the Republic of North Macedonia, Paul Maassen- Open Government Partnership Secretary General, Gordana Gapikj Dimitrovska – National OGP Coordinator (MISA), Martin Todevski – Co-Chair of the Council for Coordination and Monitoring of the OGP Process and the National 2018 – 2020 Action Plan, Ivona Stalevska – Foundation Open Society Macedonia, OGP Civil Society Organizations Network, Zlatko Atanasov, Parliamentary Institutute Parliament of RNM – Open Parliament, Zharko Hadzi-Zafirov from the Center for Legal Research and Analysis – Open Judiciary, Daniela Arsenova Lazarova, LED coordinator in the Municipality of Sveti Nikole – Local Level OGP, German Filkov, member of the Council for Coordination and Monitoring of the OGP Process and the National 2018 – 2020 Action Plan, as well as Sandra Pernar, Regional OGP Coordinator for Europe and Marija Nikolovska Arsovska from Metamorphosis Foundation.

Moreover, our country is member of the 2011 initiative and has thus far adopted four national action plans (in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018 ). Coordinator of OGP government activities is the Ministry of Information Society and Administration (MISA).

 

 

 

Ministry of Information Society and Administration

Skopje, September 22nd,  2020

On September 21st, the fifth video-session was held og the Council for Coordination and Monitoring of the Open Government Partnership Process and National OGP Action Plan 2018-2020.

The session was organized and chaired by Mr. Martin Todevski, co-chair of the Council for Coordination and Monitoring of the Open Government Partnership Process (Council )and National OGP Action Plan 2018-2020 (NAP).

The session noted attendance from 9 Council Members, as well as Gordana Gapikj Dimitrovska – National Open Government Partnership Coordinator under the Ministry of Information Society and Administration (MISA), Adrian Abazi and Stanislav Vasilkovski – MISA.

After adoption of proposed minutes, Council members reviewed, discussed and adopted the following proposed documents: draft-Report of the fourth session of the Council for Coordination and MOnitoring of the OGP process, held on 29.07.2020, Open Government Partnership educational materials and draft-Priority reas and working groups for co-creation in accordance with lodged applications for participating in the process of co-creation of the Open Government Partnership Action Plan 2021-2023.

On behalf of the working group (established by the Council for Coordination and Monitoring of the Open Government Partnership Process and National OGP Action Plan 2018-2020) comprised of: Darko Antikj from the Association for Emancipation, Solidarity and Equality of Women, Ivona Staleska from Foundation Open Society Macedonia, tasked to prepare the educational material, and Eli Chakar from Ministry of Local Self-Government, Ivona Stalevska presented the group’s work dynamics and the content of the prepared material.

Gordana Gapikj Dimitrovska presented an overview of the draft-priority areas and working groups for co-creation in accordance with lodged applications for participating in the process of co-creation of the Open Government Partnership Action Plan 2021-2023, whose content was created based on the Procedure for Conducting Public Consultations for creating new priorities and commitments within the process “Open Government Partnership”, with a view to provide timely, streamlined, inclusive and transparent process of co-creation of the Open Government Partnership Action Plan 2021-2023.

Each Council member voted electronically on agenda items.

Two representatives of the expert and administration service under MISA and Ivona Stalevska (Council member and coordinator of the OGP Civil Society Organizations Network) secured administrative and logistic support to prepare and organize the session.

Skopje, September 11th, 2020

The Ministry of Information Society and Administration and Foundation Metamorphosis organized 2 two-day online open data trainings, as part of the USAID civic participation project.

Open data officers and persons working in the field of open data from 22 institutions attended the trainings, held from 31st August to 3rd September 2020.

Open data trainings aim to promote knowledge and skills of persons working on opening data in state institutions.

During the two-day trainings, participants had an opportunity to be acquainted with the concept and benefits of open data and technical aspects, including open data formats, open data platforms, dataset structures, data quality dimensions and techniques for filtering and anonymization of datasets.

Participants acquired advanced knowledge on the process of identification, cataloguing and prioritization of datasets, as well as know-how on the process of dataset publication on the portal data.gov.mk

A total of three open data trainings have been organized as part of this project, noting attendance of 63 participants from 28 state institutions.

Ministry of Information Society and Administration