In this report we aim to assess the support provided by the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) to Macedonia’s decentralization process in order to suggest possible future strategies for continuing such support.
We focus on two specific institutions through which SDC has sought to support and strengthen decentralization: Community Forums, and the support provided to the Association of the Units of Local Self Government (ZELS). The assessment is based on a need to reassess SDC’s involvement with decentralization in Macedonia beyond 2014 and is not a full technical assessment of SDC’s support.
The limited nature of Macedonia’s decentralization is explained by the fact that the main impetus for it came from the need to end an ethnic conflict and resolve tensions between its two main ethnic groups — Macedonians and Albanians — rather than from an expressed need to devolve power away from the centre or to improve the delivery of public services. Therefore, the reforms sought to allow for power-sharing between the main ethnic groups by sub-dividing the country into 85 units according to demographic considerations that would allow minority groups to self-govern in those parts of the country where they are in a majority.
Authors
