Consultative Workshop “How to establish successful cooperation between regional development agencies and their stakeholders?” held in Novi Sad

The workshop named “How to establish successful cooperation between regional development agencies and their stakeholders?” was attended by representatives of regional development agencies and administration of Autonomous Province of Vojvodina. The workshop was attended by Provinical Secretary for Interegional Cooperation and Local Self-Government, Branislav Bugarski. During the workshop brief Project description, research findings on stakeholder’s perception on regional development agencies in Serbia, as well as recommendations on improving consultative mechanism between regional development agencies and stakeholders was presented. Workshop was hosted by research associates and project assistants of Belgrade Open School, Vanja Dolapcev and Slobodan Ocokoljic.

Within the workshop, discussion was organized on improving regional development policy in Republic of Serbia and on improving recommended consultative model. Key recommendations on regional development policy were focused on inter-municipal cooperation, regular monthly meetings between stakeholders and establishment of decentralized regional development system in Republic of Serbia.

Regarding recommended consultative model between regional development agencies and their stakeholders, comments and suggestions of participants were focused on selection of members in Project Implementation Monitoring Unit and Project Implementation Unit. As well as on the consultative workshop which was held on Wednesday, 21^st of November 2013 in Uzice, it was suggested to organize open public call for civil society organizations’ participation in recommended model.

Also, participants from territory of Region of Vojvodina have shared their good experiences in regional development policy. These experiences were related to cooperation between provincial administration and regional development subjects, development of regional development strategies and joint activities of provincial administration, local self-government units and regional development agencies.

By concluding this workshop, consultative process within “Development for Real: Evaluating Development Impact and Performances of Regional Development Agencies in Serbia” project was finished. The following activity on this Project will be organized by the end of January of 2014. This activity is actually a final conference where the final policy study on improving consultative model between regional development agencies and their stakeholders will be presented.