Civic Policies and Democratic Political Process
Enhancing Public Influence and Exercising Control Over the Desicion-Making Process
The primary goal of the project was to strengthen democracy by facilitating effective representation of civil interests. IRIS worked for the achievement of this goal by generating policy analyses and strategic planning products, which increased the policy capacity of several NGOs. The program was structured according to a three-year plan of activities. During the second and third year of the project implementation the objectives achieved were as follows: improving IRIS institutional capacity in terms of organizational resources and know-how to meet the planned activities; developing the policy service. IRIS policy service was focused on three main policy issues: How does an NGO address a grass root community problem? How does NGO gather support from other NGO? And how does an NGO approach decision-makers and influence them in favor of their grass root community? The above aimed at stimulating grass root level activity and involvement for public representation of interests, as well as at mobilizing target NGOs for consolidation of resources for effective coalition building.
The IRIS policy product was a strategic plan of action for practical implementation of civil interest’s representation by targeted NGOs. Each plan was designed on the bases of case studies of a specific problem and further elaborated into a model for general application for similar problems in the future. The project was a part of the Democracy Network Program, supported by the Institute for Sustainable Communities and the USAID.