The Executive Board of the ALDA in Kragujevac
A meeting of the Executive Board of the Association of Local Democracy Agencies for Central and South Europe was held in Kragujevac in the presence of the ALDA President Per Winter. The issues such as current projects status, action plan updating, draft of 2010 budget and operational credits for the period 2010/2012, as well as agency for local democracy network spreading.
“The Association has been working in the Balkans for 10 years, but we have had agencies for local democracy since 1993. The first one was in Subotica, and the network spread gradually. So, now we have twelve agencies, eleven in the region of Western Balkans and one in South Caucasus in Georgia“, said Per Winter.
“We have been working closely with local governments trying to improve citizen’s situation in the particular region, but it does not mean they can not work wider. We are very happy with work on local level, as well as here in Kragujevac with Mr Milovanovic, our Vice-president, for we are very keen on to continue cooperation on local level. Our center is never in some capitol, because there are so many activities and international organizations. We work on local level: we have trainings for politicians, officials, and we work on civil society in order to help them express their attitudes, to improve society’s daily life as much possible. Therefore we have many programs. We have program for young people where we try to engage them as much as possible, environmental programs, local economic development programs, trainings for young entrepreneurs teaching them how to elaborate their ideas and make them into business plans, taxation or legal wise, or what ever else they need. At the moment one of the biggest projects are microcredits, which are doing very well here in Serbia, and we have already got more than € one million. Those are small projects with extraordinary participation of women, and I think they make one third of the project. The biggest part is in the production sector, which is the thing that can really help the economy, more so than coffee shops and things like that, “he added.
“It is good that such meetings are held for it is an opportunity to show city’s potentials to our guests, who are managing the whole association and agency from the Balkans to the Caspian Sea. In that way we should rise their interest for this region, because the ALDA is getting stronger as partner of the European Commission and the Council of Europe, and they can help us a lot.“ Milovanovic reminded of three major projects - Microcredit scheme for young enterpreneurs in South Eastern Europe, Raising awareness on waste management through education and implementation of selective waste collection, and Institutional support of the City of Sureness to the City of Kragujevac in defining the social policy.
