Project
Civica Mobilitas grantees have carried out an impressive range of projects and activities across Macedonia, promoting good governance, decentralisation, and social change.
A strong civil society is key to good governance in a democracy, and many civil society organizations (CSOs) in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia are fighting for positive changes in their country. However, Macedonian CSOs tend to lack structure, direction, and public support – with CSOs dissenting from the ruling political party often being oppressed.
To provide civil society in Macedonia with much-needed support, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) initiated the Civica Mobilitas programme in 2013 and contracted NIRAS to run the implementation. Currently in it's fourth phase, Civica Mobilitas is running until the end of 2026.
NIRAS led the first three phases in consortium with the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC) and FCG Swedish Development AB. MCIC leads the current, final phase together with NIRAS. This is a strategic decision in order to enable the sustainability of MCIC as a local NGO to support a platform like Civica Mobilitas independently in all its administrative and strategic aspects and not to depend on an international actor like NIRAS.
In the exit phase NIRAS gives strategic technical advice and support to MCIC to ensure the sustainability and institutionalisation of Civica Mobilitas as a CSO platform that will last even after SDC has pulled out.
The goal of Civica Mobilitas is to ensure that social changes in North Macedonia are driven by a strong civil society sector, active citizens, and good cooperation with the authorities, resulting in more transparent, accountable and socially-inclusive governance at both the central and local level. Specifically, the programme aims to:
Civica Mobilitas includes a variety of intervention components, with a key focus on providing diverse support and grants for institutional development. This approach enables customised organisational strengthening of CSOs. Alongside the grant scheme, which - since 2013 - has awarded 399 grant totaling 12.6M CHF, capacity-building for grantee organisations is crucial. The programme operates a Help Desk providing hands-on support and mentoring to CSOs to improve their financial sustainability and effectiveness. Citizens can also access the Help Desk. Civica Mobilitas’ learning programme includes mentoring on sector-wide civil society insitutional development and organisational strengthening using Deloitte’s “As One” approach. This has promoted collective leadership and individual action by engaging CSO leaders and their people in developing and implementing organisational development plans. The programme also includes learning activities based on a learning needs assessment. Seminars and workshops have been offered on a variety of topics including ethical financing; resource mobilisation; innovative approaches to sustainability; monitoring, evaluation and learning; policy advocacy and influence; training of trainers; analysing, forming and managing multi-stakeholder processes and partnerships; results-based management; communication, visibility, social marketing, governance, accountability and transparency along the lines of the “Islands of Integrity” anti-corruption approach ... and more.
The programme also developed a CSO Code of Good Practices and Compliance, which has been adopted and signed by 115 CSOs. In addition, over 105 events have been held with over 11,600 participants, including Civil Society Festivals addressing engagement between citizens and CSOs, an annual National Forum focussing on cooperation between State authorities and civil society on strengthening the environment for (further) civil society development, Regional and Thematic Forums addressing civil society pertaining to any of North Macedonia’s 8 planning regions or any of the causes promoted by CSOs, and an annual Networking Meeting stimulating collaboration among CSOs and the creation of national, regional and thematic civil society alliances.
Civica Mobilitas grantees have carried out an impressive range of projects and activities across Macedonia, promoting good governance, decentralisation, and social change. Some of these are captured in the Beneficiary Assessment of the programme, which gathered feedback from 567 respondents across eight regions of North Macedonia from citizens, CSOs, and public sector representatives. In the final phase of Civica Mobilitas, a fully-fledged Political Economy and Power Analysis (PEPA) customized to civil society in North Macedonia and a capitalisation study will be carried out.
To find out more about Civica Mobilitas, please go to their website, which offers access to the programme’s grants, news, surveys, a CSO directory, and other civil society resources. In addition, you can find the programme on Facebook and sign up for a private Facebook Group and watch video content on YouTube.
