On December 18, 2017, starting at 10 in the EU InfoCentre in Skopje, the conference "New Challenges, New Perspectives on Local Democracy" will be held. Representatives of the Ministry of Local Self-Government, diplomatic missions in Skopje, and members of municipal councils, experts in the field of local self-government, civic organizations and other stakeholders of local importance will take part in this event.

The development of local democracy is the basis of democratic processes and is one of the priorities in the European integration processes, which is why the strengthening of the democratic capacities of all stakeholders in the local communities and the intensification of the citizens' participation is of particular importance. The conference will raise issues of fostering local democracy, increasing citizen participation and cooperation between local government and civil society organizations in building local policies.

The conference will be officially opened by HE. Mr Christian Thimonier,the Ambassador of France, and Deputy Minister of Local Self-Government, Mr. Dejan Pavleski, professor Mileva Gjurovska, president of the European Movement and Ms Milena Dimitrovska, project manager from ALDA - Skopje.

 Among the panelists are Mr. Ace Kocevski, mayor of Veles, Ms. Kristina Hadzi-Vasileva, expert in the field of local democracy, Mr. German Filkov, president of the Center for Civil Communications and prof. Ilija Todorovski from the Faculty of Law in Kicevo.

The conference is organized within the project "CSOs for making local democracy work". The project aims to strengthen the influence of civil society organizations in public policies at the local level and is implemented by the European Association for Local Democracy (ALDA) Skopje, the Association of Financial Workers in Local Self Government and Public Enterprises (PFD) and the European Movement. The project is financially supported by the European Union within the IPA program for supporting civil society organizations.