On 2 and 4 November 2021, local councillors and officials from the City of Mostar engaged in a fruitful exchange with  their counterparts from other European countries and representatives of relevant institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, during a two-part online workshop on “Building a culture of openness and transparency in the City of Mostar”.

“At the Congress we believe that transparency and openness, as key tools for enhancing good governance, can help to create conditions for local authorities to be accountable to their constituencies,” said Thomas Andersson (Sweden, ILDG), Chair of the Congress Current Affairs Committee. “For citizens, these tools help to understand and evaluate the decisions by public authorities, as well as to ensure that their own needs and views are taken into account in the decision-making process,” he underlined.    

He also shared the experiences from his constituency while discussing the principles of open government, tools and mechanisms for transparent and inclusive public policy making, as well as ways to enhance transparency and prevent corruption, in particular in public procurement.

This workshop is the second in a series of activities organised to support the City of Mostar in responding to the needs identified by its citizens, who called for increased transparency and openness of the local authorities during the Citizens’ Assembly held in July 2021.

This event is organised in the framework of the project “Building democratic participation in the City of Mostar” implemented by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities within the Council of Europe Action Plan for Bosnia and Herzegovina 2018-2021. The aim of the project is to create opportunities for citizens to engage in a deliberative process and increase their contribution to local decision-making. In turn, this process will foster dialogue at local level and contribute to the revitalisation of democratic processes in the City of Mostar.