Belgrade, 4th December 2019 – The progress that the National Assembly and the local assemblies in Serbia have made over the past four years, especially in the domain of their work and the manner of passing decisions, was the main topic of the presentation of the results of cooperation between the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the assemblies of the municipalities and cities of Serbia, with the support of the Government of Switzerland.

“Switzerland, in partnership with the UNDP office, has been supporting the development of the Serbian Parliament for almost eight years. Through close cooperation with partners within the National Assembly and the local parliaments throughout Serbia, in keeping with the needs of those institutions, we have managed to considerably improve their work“, said Sasha Miller, Head of the Department of Good Governance of the Swiss Office for Cooperation.

Among other things, she pointed out the importance of introducing parliamentary sessions held outside the seat of the Parliament for the benefit of the citizens of Serbia. A case in point is protecting the interests of local farmers by introducing stricter criteria for the import of meat and by obligating the Ministry of Agriculture to pay them the outstanding reimbursements, all of which happened owing to the sessions of the Agricultural Committee held in Kruševac and Bajina bašta. Such sessions were  organised, in response to the demands of citizens and civil society organisations, in 27 cities and municipalities in Serbia.

“All good practices arising from cooperation with the National Assembly have been gradually adapted and introduced in the work of the assemblies of the cities and municipalities in Serbia. With the support of the Government of Switzerland, the UNDP has strengthened the parliaments of Serbia by introducing new technologies and increasing the transparency and efficiency of their work“, said Anas Qarman, Deputy of the UNDP Resident Representative in Serbia.

One of the new instruments in the work of the local assemblies of Serbia is e-parliament, a type of software that enables broadcasting video and audio recordings, as well as simple searches of the documentation on the work of the Parliament, so as to make it more accessible to the citizens and the media. In addition to this, owing to the electronic voting system, committee sessions and plenary sessions become more efficient because there is no possibility of abuse. Also, as there is no further need to print the documentation from the sessions and forward it to every individual representative of the people, considerable amounts of money are saved in this way. Thus, for example, it has been estimated that the city of Niš will save between 2 and 4 million dinars in this way over a period of one year. So far, e-parliament has been introduced in 6 cities, and it is expected that 40 new cities will be introducing it next year.

Within the framework of reviewing the cooperation with the National Assembly and the assemblies of municipalities and cities, the following were presented: the local assemblies’ accountability index for the year 2019, the portal for monitoring budget spending and inter-parliamentary cooperation at the local level.

These innovations in the work of the parliaments were reviewed by members of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, the Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, the State Audit Institution, the Assemblies of the cities of Užice and Niš, and representatives of local governments.

Also announced was the plan to continue the cooperation between the UNDP and the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and the local assemblies of cities and municipalities, with the support of the Government of Switzerland. The areas recognised as those where there is a need to additionally improve the results were as follows: all-encompassing political dialogue, strengthening the local parliaments, engaging the citizens and improving gender equality through the work of the Parliament.

The results presented form a part of the four-year project entitled “Strengthening the Oversight Function and Transparency in the Work of the National Assembly”, which was financed by the Government of Switzerland and implemented by the UNDP. The overall value of the project is 4 million dollars.