EU PROGRES

With the “Your Money, Our Responsibility” street activity, around 200 citizens of Novi Pazar demonstrated what they felt were priority fields for 2013 city budget funding. The citizens’ survey was a part of the good governance campaign “I want… because I live here” funded by the European Union and the Government of Switzerland through the European Partnership with Municipalities Programme - EU PROGRES, implemented in 25 municipalities in South and South West Serbia.

This street activity is one of the initiatives of the local government, directly including the citizens into the budget planning process by expressing their expectations for funding of certain fields and projects from the city vaults. Furthermore, it supports the “Participative Budgeting” project also implemented within EU PROGRES.

“We wanted to see what the citizens thought was the most urgent job to do at this time and try to secure funds through the budget to have it done next year”, Mirsad Jusufović, who works in the Novi Pazar Mayor's Cabinet. “And city revenue – just like its expenditures – is transparent”.

The participative budgeting practice implies the immediate democratic access to the budgeting process, using mechanisms that enable citizens to directly participate in decision-making about priorities in the expenditure of public funds. This also improves efficiency, accountability, transparency and equality – which are the basic underlying principles of good governance, seated at the core of the entire “I want… because I live here” campaign.

Polling will continue throughout November and citizens will be able to take polling leaflets and leave them after having completed them in the “Your Money, Our Responsibility” box located at the Novi Pazar Citizens Assistance Centre. Survey results will be published at the official website of the City Administration (www.novipazar.rs).