Monitoring Visits Have Confirmed the Sustainability of Partnerships and Grant Results
In the period of 8th – 21st May, the Civica Mobilitas team had monitoring visits of the grantee organizations. The visits took place in the premises of the grantee organizations, and the meetings were most often attended also by the representatives of the partner organizations.
With respect to the fact that the biggest part of the projects enters their final stage, the visits were an opportunity for discussions with the organizations on their experiences in the implementation of grants, challenges that they faced, results achieved, but also about the value of partnerships that have developed during the cooperation.
The visits included the whole team of Civica Mobilitas, and the discussions took place in Skopje, Bitola, Gostivar, Kumanovo, Negotino, Struga, Strumica and Shtip.
Besides the administrative and programme aspects, the focus of the discussions was on the changes that the grants have encouraged in the organizations and communities, lessons learnt, new initiatives that resulted from the cooperation and possibilities for further joint actions.
The team had a possibility to hear firsthand how the organizations build partnerships, how they deal with local challenges and in what ways they projects contribute to stronger civic participation, networking and local development.
One of the most significant conclusions from the visits was that the partnerships established via Civica Mobilitas grants had largely grown into something more than a formal project cooperation. Almost all visited organizations assessed their partnership as successful, functional, and especially important, sustainable also after the completion of the grant.
The organization stressed the trust, complementarity of expertise and regular communication as crucial elements of success. “Partnership is assessed as ultimately successful, functional and complementary”, say HERA representatives, who, together with their partners: “Stronger Together”. ESE and the Initiative for Women’s Rights from Shuto Orizari have built a model for coordinated advocacy in the area of public health.
With “Krste Jon” scout brigade from Struga, the partnership has also obtained a broader social dimension: with joint workshops, camps and local activities with young people from Debar, Ohrid and Struga they have created new friendships and cooperation among young Macedonians, Albanians and Roma. “The project has not only contributed to raising the environmental environment, but also to building a culture of cooperation, joint responsibility and active joint engagement in the community”, said the people at the organization.
Parallelly to partnership building, the organizations have also achieved specific results, many of them beyond the initial plans. HERA has achieved specific systemic changes in the health care policies: they prevented cutting the funds from the Programme for HIV Population Protection, the funds for contraception and medical abortion were increased, and for the first time in ten years the Essential Medicine List was updated by including an oral contraceptive.
Using advocacy processes, Women’s Civic Initiative Antiko from Skopje contributed to introduction of six free vouchers for in vitro fertilization (IVF) for couples and broadening of the positive list with medicines for anti-coagulant therapy. “The direct impact on the national health care policies is a strong example of effective civic advocacy”, say the people at the organization.
Metamorphosis has noted a measurable progress in local self-government transparency, where the average openness of the municipalities has grown from 27 percent in 2022 to 40 percent in 2025, while the municipality of Struga has asked to join the mCommunity platform upon its own initiative.
Pro Local from Bitola has established a Regional Youth Platform, where nine municipalities and ten CSOs cooperate on regular basis, and one of the specific results is the initiative for changes to the budget circular note signed by nine mayors and sent to the Ministry of Finance.
The Center for Civic Communications considers that their biggest achievement is the fact that the names of the real owners of companies that are granted public procurement agreements in the country are published for the first time; in this way, Macedonia has become one of the rare countries in the world where this information is directly used in the fight against corruption.
During their visits, the organizations also share their experience related to the visibility and communication of their activities.
The monitoring visits have confirmed that Civica Mobilitas grantees create effects that go beyond their planned results. The organizations have fulfilled their project goals, built sustainable partnerships, strengthened their capacities, achieved specific political changes and created coalitions that have continued to act individually.
