Project: Youth and Democratic Control of Security Sector17Dec2015
Discussion on lessons learned and recommendations for future support of CSOs by OSCE
During the implementation of the project “Consolidating the democratization process in the security sector in the Republic of Serbia”, in the 2010-2015 period the Democratization Department of the OSCE Mission to Serbia provided support to civil society organizations to implement 28 small-scale projects in the field of security sector reform in Serbia with support of Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency SIDA.
Discussion on the findings of these projects and lessons learned was organized first at the conference in Nis and later was presented a detail report by Jelena Radoman with recommendations for future support of civil society organizations in this area in Belgrade on December 17th.
According to author of report, the projects of civil society as an actor of the security sector may be generally classified into three large groups: research projects, educational projects and advocacy projects. Although all of the supported activities pertained to security sector reform in Serbia, the implemented projects were significantly different in terms of issues covered i.e. issues of national security, sectoral policies and local security issues.
Professionalisation of human resources and capacity building are significant for the improvement of activities of CSOs aiming to envisage impacts and indicators in projects. Future donor support should be flexible in relation on organizational capacities (human resources, experiences, annual budgets).
A need for definition of institutional framework of cooperation between CSOs and security sector institutions (Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Defense) was highlighted in discussion with the representatives of civil society, Office for cooperation with civil society, Ministry of defense and OSCE Mission to Serbia i.e. a necessity of mutual familiarization with the procedures and rules and predictability of proceedings of these ministries regarding the requirements of CSOs for cooperation.
Svetlana Djurdjevic Lukic, the director of Public Policy Research Centre and an associate Marija Stankovic have participated to discussion at the conference in Falkensteiner Hotel.
OSCE Mission to Serbia recognized the approach of Public Policy Research Centre in considering of sectoral and intersectoral issues particularly focused on vulnerable groups and supported three projects in security sector reform area: LGBT population and security sector reform, Roma women and men and security sector reform and Youths local security issues and democratic control of security sector.
The presentation of CENTRE’s projects from the conference in Nis you may find here.