CPI Foundation

Games 4 Change

Admin — Tue, 10 Dec 2024 13:42:37 +0000

The CPI Foundation, together with partner organizations from Italy, Romania, Albania, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, is working on the development and implementation of online social role-playing games as part of a three-year Erasmus+ project funded by the European Union. These games explore key social issues present in our communities. Our goal is to better understand how contemporary topics—such as climate change, new technologies, and human rights—can be explored and understood through the use of games. Feedback collected through our research so far shows that young people are particularly passionate about using games to address challenges related to mental health, followed by strong interest in arts and culture, sports, and media communication. Equally important are the insights from educators, both formal and non-formal, who have highlighted civic engagement, teamwork skills, and mental health as critical areas of concern in their work with young people. In the next phase of the project, we will be implementing these games with young people across Bosnia and Herzegovina, in our local language. Would you like to be part of this community and work with us on this project? Apply via this link.

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Raising Awareness of Public Finance in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the Power of Keeping it Simple

Bakir Jalovčić — Thu, 29 Oct 2015 09:18:28 +0000

Raising Awareness of Public Finance in Bosnia and Herzegovina: the Power of Keeping it Simple by Emina Gljiva, Foundation CPI— Oct 28, 2015 In 2009 Centar za zastupanje građanskih interesa (CPI Foundation) conducted a survey on budget literacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The results were alarming: 95 percent of the respondees had little or no knowledge of how the government was spending public money. Given the complexities of budgeting in the country, it is unsurprising that public would struggle with keeping informed. There are 14 separate central government budgets, each controlled by a different parliament and a different ministry of finance. A collective Euro 4.72 billion (9.28 billion KM) is spent through these budgets each year, but public money is rarely discussed in terms of the total amount available to the state. For the CPI Foundation, which works to publish budget data and analysis that is accessible to citizens and relevent to their needs, addressing the low levels of budget literacy in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been an urgent challenge. We needed to divise a way to focus people’s attention on the importance of budgets that was simple and accessible to those with little knowledge of public finance. Counting Public Spending…in Public To capture the public’s attention, and underline the importance of budgets, we decided to intall a digital counter displaying how much public money the government is spending. Located on a busy street at the heart of the capital Sarajevo, the counter gives a second-by-second update of expenditure across all central budgets in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The counter doesn’t display budget information in real-time, but rather total annual expenditure averaged for each second of the year. Its effect, however, has been powerful. In the time it takes a passer by to complete their shopping, hundreds of thousands of Euro are shown to have passed through government coffers. Many are surprised at the scale of public spending; when interviewed by the media organization Balkan Insight, a street vendor pointed to the counter and shouted “Look at this! They spend almost a million KM [500 thousand euros] an hour!” Bosnian media now uses the counter as a backdrop to all their stories related to public finance and it is frequently featured on national prime time news. Crucially, the counter serves as a constant reminder of the importance of public finance issues and helps to position the CPI foundations as a go to source for information on budgets. Making the Most of the Counter Getting the project off the ground wasn’t easy. It took us over a year to obtain the urban planning permissions necessary for us to install the counter in the public square. The display itself had to be tailor made by local electronic companies and must to be recalibrated each year using publicly available data from the government and the international financial institutions. Yet the effort has paid off. The counter continually provides opportunities for us to engage the wider public on budget issues. For example, in April this year we issued a press release saying “From the beginning of the year the counter has already enumerated 3 billion, how much have you, as a citizen, benefited from that?” Similarly, at the start of each year we issue a press release with the photo of the counter along with commentary on public spending in the country during the year. An Entry Point to Learning More About Budgets While it is important people understand what resources are available to the government, total spending only tells part of the country’s budget story. Yet by keeping the information on display simple and easy for everyone can understand, the counter has been the perfect entry point for people to learn more. CPI Foundation is the only organization in Bosnia and Herzegovina that provides the public with access to the budgetary and extrabudgetary information across different levels of government Our research and analysis is relevant to the lives of everyone living in the country. By grabbing people’s attention and using the media in strategic ways, we have sparked conversations that go far beyond simple expenditure. We have also shown government decision makers that civil society and the public are interested in budgets and care about how public money is spent.

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Report: Energy Efficiency, Just Do It

Admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2015 09:53:34 +0000

Report: Energy Efficiency, Just Do It

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Public Expenditure Glossary

Admin — Fri, 28 Nov 2014 11:16:26 +0000

The citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have the right to request that public funds be managed and spent in a rational and economical way. As they spend funds from the public budget, the state authorities are obliged to provide detailed explanations of their expenditures and present it in a form easily understandable to the average citizen. In order to be able to demand answers from all government levels, and demand clarifications for any budget item that is unclear, it is important to understand how the existing public finance system functions. To address that need, the Public Interest Advocacy Center has, amongst other things, created Public Expenditure Glossary.

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Report on corruption in energy sector in the region

Admin — Fri, 12 Dec 2014 10:55:48 +0000

Report on corruption in energy sector in the region presented on 24 June 2014 in Brussels, as a part of the South East Europe Sustainable Energy Policy or SEE SEP project. CPI Foundation was a partner organization on the project.

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Open Public Procurement in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Admin — Mon, 23 Jun 2014 07:58:29 +0000

As a part of the EU program for the Implementation of the Anti-corruption Strategy and Action Plan in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in partnership with the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIN) and the Center for Social Research – Analitika, the Public Interest Advocacy Center is implementing the Open Public Procurement in Bosnia and Herzegovina Project. Stemming from the necessity to more efficiently combat corruption, the activities of the project are aimed at increasing the transparency of public procurement by enhancing public procurement monitoring that will be conducted through a network of CSOs from various parts of BiH. The project’s beneficiaries include state agencies in BiH dealing with public procurement and corruption in a broader sense, public officials, prosecutors, auditors, and, consequently, the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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News

Admin — Thu, 29 May 2014 10:02:30 +0000

Test. English.

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From Public Information to Active Citizenship

Admin — Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:28:43 +0000

With financial support from the Open Society Fund – Bosnia and Herzegovina, under its civil society program, the Public Interest Advocacy Center is implementing the project “From Public Information to Active Citizenship”. We believe that Bosnia and Herzegovina can have an efficient and transparent public finance system which will work in the interest of both state and citizens only if the contents, basic characteristics and key issues related to the BiH public finance system are rendered easily understandable to the average citizen. This represents a prerequisite to reduce non-transparent public expenditure-related decision-making and decision-making based on the discretionary powers of the political elites in BiH, while providing citizens with complete and understandable information on how public expenditure is being managed. A research conducted in 2010, using a sample of 1,000 BiH citizens, has demonstrated that a considerable number of people do not have any information on extrabudgetary funds or procedures and institutions that play key roles in the allocation of extrabudgetary funds. This is why the activities of this project are aimed at initiating the broadest possible debate on the effectiveness and priorities of the extrabudgetary funds allocation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Public Expenditure Counter

Admin — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 11:44:40 +0000

The Public Expenditure Counter was put up in the busiest street in Sarajevo at the end of 2011. Its display shows the amount and the speed of public spending around the clock, which serves as a constant reminder of the taxpayers’ money spent by the BiH institutions each year. It tracks the public expenditure at all government levels in BiH – state, entity, canton, municipality and District of Brčko. The citizens of BiH have the right to information that will decrease the possibility of manipulations of the public funds in their country. Bearing in mind that the quality of life of citizens depends directly on their involvement in the budget process, we hope that the continuous efforts to raise awareness on public expenditure will initiate a more active citizen participation, and result in citizens assuming their share of responsibility in the budget process. This will enable us to jointly ensure rational and efficient management of public expenditure. The counter was financed by the Open Society Fund – Bosnia and Herzegovina and USAID/CAP II Program through the Center for Civil Initiatives.

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Open Budget Survey (OBS)

Admin — Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:39:10 +0000

The Public Interest Advocacy Center has conducted the Open Budget Survey (OBS), researching the state–level budget process at in Bosnia and Herzegovina by applying the methodology of the International Budget Partnership (IBP) – an organization that measures, ranks and publishes the rank list of countries based on the criteria of budget process openness. The latest ranking was published in January 2013. At the same time, applying the same methodology and criteria, we have conducted a research of the budget process at entity, cantonal and District of Brčko level, in order to establish how public budgets are managed in BiH. This has enabled us to point out to the authorities, civil sector and citizens what corrections need to be made and what priorities should be set in those processes.

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