SELDI Events and News

The 3-day training, organised by the SELDI anti-corruption initiative on 12-14 June 2019 in Sarajevo, had as key objectives to inspire CSOs and grassroot organisations to engage in anti-corruption initiatives, instruct them how to apply corruption and state capture monitoring methodologies, and encourage them to collaborate among themselves and with the public institutions in order to achieve positive impact over the national and regional policies. During the opening, Dr. Janina Berg, Policy Officer at the Center for Thematic Expertise – Rule of Law (Anti-Corruption desk) of DG NEAR,...

SELDI’s member, the Center for Democratic Transition (CDT) and the Faculty of Economics at the University of Montenegro, in cooperation with the Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law are organising a Leadership Academy for Development in Podgorica on 1-5 July 2019. The course will focus around a common set of five challenges that policymakers encounter in most policy reform initiatives: building coalitions of stakeholders; implementing policy reform; changing the behaviour of target populations (businesses, individuals and/or frontline workers); building...

SELDI has launched a call for proposals. Deadline March 4, 2019. We look forward to your proposals. The Southeast European Leadership for Development and Integrity through its grants coordinator the Centers for Civic Initiatives (CCI) is seeking proposals for Support to Local Civil Society Organisations in Pursuing EU and Regional Anti-Corruption Agenda in IPA countries from the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo* , fyr Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey). The grant scheme is kindly supported by the European Commission through financial assistance for the...

A roundtable discussion on A Euro-Atlantic Future for Macedonia? was held on 3 September 2018 in Skopje. The roundtable focused on the role the EU and NATO on the European future of Macedonia, the impact of the progress of Macedonia on the Western Balkans, as well as the experience of neighbouring countries.The event was organized by the European Policy Institute (EPI), the Institute for Democracy "Societas Civilis" and the Center for Economic Analyses, in cooperation with the Aspen Institute in Berlin.  Speakers included Mr. Ruslan Stefanov, Director of the Economic Program...

The Western Balkans have made continued progress in addressing rule of law and governance issues since the turn of the century. The advancement has been made possible thanks primarily to triangulation of reforms, led by local civil society, reformist minded politicians, and external aid. The Corruption Monitoring System of the Southeast European Leadership for Development and Integrity, has shown that corruption pressure on citizens in the Western Balkans has declined by 15 percentage points between 2000 and 2016 but at 26% remains unacceptably high. In some countries and policy domains...

Facilitated by the Bulgarian and Austrian EU Council presidencies, as well as by shifting European focus towards to region, 2018 will grant Western Balkans an unprecedented access to the EU. Further European initiatives, especially the Berlin Process and the upcoming new Enlargement Strategy, will also contribute to the strategic importance of the upcoming 12 months. These prospects will provide opportunities for closer EU integration of the region. But national governments will have to take ownership of their own integration process though demonstrating tangible results and concrete progress...

Over 60 experts from ministries of justice, anti-corruption bodies and non-governmental organisations from South East Europe (SEE), gathered in Ljubljana, Slovenia on 25-26 October 2017 to discuss the implementation of corruption risk assessments (CRA) and corruption proofing of legislation (CPL) across the region. The participants reviewed the patterns of corruption in society and focused on specific corruption-related occurrences in SEE economies.The forum, organized by the Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) and the Regional Anti-corruption Initiative (RAI), in cooperation with SELDI,...

The Berlin Process initiative opened a new chapter for EU integration of the Western Balkans countries, as the Southeast Europe (SEE) region continues to experience serious governance and democratic deficits. The Balkans Barometer 2016 of the Regional Cooperation Council shows that corruption remains one of the key concerns for the people in the Western Balkans. Data from the Southeast Europe Leadership for Development and Integrity (SELDI) network points to a stagnation at best in corruption victimization levels between 2014 and 2016, which denotes backsliding in terms of rule of law and...

The existence of undeclared work, hidden economy and corruption have been identified by the European Commission and other international and local agencies as a major barrier to enabling embedded economic prosperity in SEE. In a recent study, the SELDI initiative and University of Sheffield Management School uncovered that hidden economy in SEE remains wide-spread; it perpetuates informality, which is linked to corruption, and denotes a substantial gap between formal and informal institutions. This gap is due both to underdeveloped formal market institutions, and also to the lack of coherent...

In the last decade, Russia has used a range of tools to amplify its economic footprint in Central and Eastern Europe and achieve its political goals. This is one of the key findings in the Kremlin Playbook: Understanding Russian Influence in Central and Eastern Europe study, prepared by the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) in partnership with the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and presented at an international conference in Sofia, co-sponsored by the NATO Public Diplomacy Division.Dr. Ognian Shentov, Chairman of CSD, emphasized in the opening remarks of the...