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Policy brief: Meaningful involvement of CSOs in SDGs – Are Western Balkans falling behind?

 

CSOs in the region through their role and work in articulating the needs of their constituents, providing service-delivery, being agents of accountability and promoting good governance practices, have a fundamental role to play in advancing the SDGs. Moreover, these goals provide a reversal of emphasis in the direction of localization – with implementation and accountability happening at the local, national and regional level.

A review of MDG-related (Millennium Development Goals) implementation practices across the region reveals that international CSOs focused more on the MDGs as compared to CSOs working on a local level. The question then arises as to if these new set of goals – that provide ample opportunities for dialogue and multi-stakeholder participation – will propel a shift from this business as usual path towards a more meaningful involvement of CSOs in the region in localizing the SDGs; since in order to begin a bottom-up process of transforming the goals into local realities, the SDGs need to be owned by individuals, communities and the civil sector.

The aim of this policy brief is to expose the current situation of CSOs involvement in localizing SDGs across the region in order to advocate for a meaningful involvement of civil society in the process.

Click to read the policy brief.

This Policy brief has been prepared in the framework of the regional project “Western Balkan CSOs for Global Development” supported by Austrian Development Cooperation and SlovakAid.