The Belgrade Open School, in partnership with Toplica Center for Democracy and Human Rights, held the conference "Local Transparency: Fighting Corruption and Development Chance" as a final activity within the project "Strengthening Local Transparency" on May 18 in the Media Center.

80 participants attended the conference, among others representatives of the Anti-Corruption Agency, Directorate for Electronic Administration, donor communities and civil society organizations.

From the Delegation of the European Union to the Republic of Serbia, which supports the project, Mr. Nicolas Bizel spoke, emphasizing the important role of civil society in the fight against corruption and the future EU course that will continue to support such projects. Milorad Bjeletic, Executive Director of the Belgrade Open School, presented the project "Strengthening Local Transparency", that is, the goals and activities of the project.

Sanja Nasevski, a member of the project team of the Belgrade Open School, introduced the participants with the results of the research on the transparency of work of local self-governments, highlighting the very low level of transparency and the low availability of the most sensitive data, such as data on revenues and expenditures, public procurement data and  granted state aid data. She also presented the recommendations and measures that the Belgrade Open School advocates for improving the pro-active transparency of public authorities and information booklets about the work of state bodies. Stanojla Mandić, Deputy Commissioner, addressed the audience on behalf of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection. Ms. Mandić emphasized the important role of this institution in defending the right to access information of public importance and supporting the project "Strengthening Local Transparency". One of the speakers also was Mr. Duško Pejović, Supreme State Auditor of the State Audit Institution, who emphasized the importance of transparency of budgets of local self-governments and public supervising. On behalf of the project partner, Toplica Center for Democracy and Human Rights, Dragan Dobrašinović addressed the audience. He spoke about the causative-consequence correlation of transparency and corruption, based on the experience of the Coalition for Public Finance Supervision, led by Toplica Center for Democracy and Human Rights.

The project "Strengthening Local Transparency" is being implemented by the Belgrade Open School in partnership with the Toplica Center for Democracy and Human Rights, in cooperation with the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, and the support of the Delegation of the European Union in the Republic of Serbia. The project is co-financed by the Office for Cooperation with Civil Society of the Government of the Republic of Serbia. For more information on the project, research results and recommendations, visit www.dostup.no.