- NGO APPLICATION FORM -
SECTION I
The Applicant
Full Legal Name of Applicant
(As per registration certificate)Organizata pr Demokraci,
Antikorrupsion dhe Dinjitet OHU!
Full Name of Applicant
(in English)Organization for Democracy, Anticorruption and
Dignity OHU!
Address2 korriku 4/4, Prishtine.
Office Telephone Number (s)038 248 506
Fax NumberNA
E-mail [email protected], [email protected]
Web Addresswww.cohu.org, www.preportr.com
Contact Person, TitleLorik Bajrami, Executive Director
Contact persons e-mail [email protected]
Contact persons phone number044 173 552
Year organisation was registered2005
Do you have operational bank accountYes.
Estimated Budget
Funds requested from AKT LSApplicants cost share Total cost of
proposed project
USD USD USD
SECTION II
Draft Project Proposal
Project Title"Ensuring integrity of local governments through
increased research and monitoring capacities of local CSOs"
Project Duration10 months
PartnersCommunication for Social Development (CSD)
Please be concrete in describing your proposed project. Do not
exceed 5 pages in this section, as your proposal will not be
eligible for evaluation. Please use the same font.
1. Justification and Background
Please provide clear description and justification about the
problem/issue you would like to address. Be concrete in describing
its relevance to the country/region/target groups.In Kosovo
corruption ranks among the top problems of the country. A number of
local and international organizations have shown that corruption in
Kosovo has permeated highest levels of governance, local and
central. Our research has shown that public procurement law and
procedures are often bypassed or twisted to serve other purposes
than those of the public. Once they get to power, political parties
tend to reward businesses and donors that have supported their
electoral campaign, thus creating an unfavorable business climate,
misusing public funds and delivering poor public services.
The misuse of public funds is not only a rule of law problem,
but also a problem of delivery of services to the citizens. If
public money are diverted to illegal channels, then the result is
delivery of poor public services. This problem can be encountered
all over Kosovo, in majority and non-majority municipalities. To
prevent the misuse of public funds and to ensure that services are
delivered to citizens who need them most, the role of civil society
organizations (CSO) in monitoring the work of local governments is
of utmost importance. This is all the more relevant for smaller
communities where the resources of local CSOs are limited to say
the least, and the focus of the media is on high politics. Thus
this project aims to increase the capacities of local CSOs to
research, monitor, advocate and deliver regular shadow reports on
the expenditure of local public funds in four ethnically mixed
municipalities. Independent reports have shown that misuse of
public funds occurs through misuse of public procurement
procedures. Through public procurement, public funds are often
distributed via clientelist and patronage networks in an exchange
system of political and economic rewards, rather than in accordance
with community needs and interests. Therefore this project aims to
train the CSOs to research and monitor the expenditure of public
funds, map their distribution and increase the accountability and
transparence of local governments.2. Project Goal and
Objectives
What are the goals and objectives of your project? Please name
one overall project goal and several specific project objectives.
Each specific objective should be clearly stated, measurable and
attainable during the proposed project timeline. The overall
project goal is to ensure greater transparence and accountability
of local governments through increased research, monitoring and
advocacy capacities of local civil society organizations. The aim
is to ensure greater responsiveness of local governments towards
the needs of their communities. The most important specific
objective is the research skills that local CSOs will gain in the
training offered by ohu. Basically this is a revenue watch project
which will train members of CSOs on how to research and oversee the
expenditure of public funds by local authorities. The trainees will
learn where and how to search when doing revenue research, what
local resources to utilize, such as, for example, the webpage of
Public Procurement Regulatory Commission and Public Procurement
Review Body (when extracting data on procurement contracts),
Central Election Commission (businesses/donors of political
parties), Business Registration Agency (owners of businesses),
Office of Auditory General (fiscal discipline and prudence), etc.
Moreover they will learn how to do Google advanced search learning
special techniques and tools to search deeper in the internet,
creating and maintaining databases of research, archiving, etc. The
trainees will obtain these skills in a ten days training by an
experienced in-house researcher.The second specific objective will
be the guided research that the trainees will conduct as part of
the training program. Trainees will be divided in groups depending
on the area or the municipality they come from, and each group will
be tasked to research on the expenditure of public funds of their
respective municipality practicing the techniques that they learned
in the training. This will entail utilizing the online public
resources, practicing the internet advanced search techniques and
tools, creating databases, and archiving. This will be a hands-on
training which will begin and continue after the initial training.
The groups will be monitored, guided and instructed by ohu in their
work until the research is finalized. In the end the trainees will
have obtained skills and learned how to utilize them in practice.
This research will continue for six months resulting in published
findings, thus the publication represents the third specific
objective. Fourth specific objective is increased activities of
CSOs in monitoring the work of local governments. This is related
to the second and third objective and as a consequence of it there
will be an increased activity of CSOs.
Fifth objective is increased transparence and accountability of
local governments as a result of increased activities of local CSOs
(related to the objectives above).
Sixth objective is fostering cooperation between majority and
non-majority CSOs as a result of training and the research to be
continued afterwards.3. Expected Results
Expected results should directly correspond to specific
objectives, project activities and timeline. They should be
concrete, practical and achievable. Expected results will include:
Increased capacities of CSOs to research and monitor the
expenditure and distribution of public funds by local governments
Increased monitoring research outputs by local CSOs Increased
activities and monitoring of local governments by CSOs Increased
transparence and accountability of local governments Fostered
cooperation between majority and non-majority CSOs4. Target
Groups
Please describe specific target groups of your project, relevant
stakeholders to be addressed and potential allies. Describe how you
plan to mobilize/inform/engage broader community/citizens.The
target groups of the project are local civil society organizations
in Albanian, Serb, or mixed municipalities whose increased
capacities and role is expected to have an impact on their
respective communities. Thus local CSOs are the specific target
groups. Relevant stakeholders to be addressed are local governments
who will be the specific target groups of the research to be
conducted by the CSOs after the training. Whereas potential allies
are local and national media who are expected to cover the research
conducted by CSOs, and maintain a perpetual public pressure on
local governmentsBy training the members of local CSOs we expect to
engage and mobilize respective communities towards having their
needs and interests addressed by local authorities. 5. Geographic
CoveragePlease briefly explain why you have selected your proposed
geographic coverage
In our selection of geographic coverage we sought a balanced
interethnic composition. In this regard we chose two Serb-dominated
municipalities, Gracanica and Partesh; one Albanian-dominated
municipality, namely Gjilan, and one, more or less, ethnically
balanced municipality, Novobrdo. These municipalities comprise part
of central and eastern Kosovo and are areas where the majority of
Kosovo Serbs south of Ibr live. Thus the project is distributed
geographically and fits perfectly well with the objectives of the
project to foster interethnic cooperation.6. Description of
activities
Please describe the proposed activities and how they help
achieve the project goal and objectives. Include a description of
the capacity building initiatives you will provide to support the
development of civil society in general. If your organization will
implement this project in partnership, please indicate the role
your partner/s will play. The project activities are focused
towards building capacities of selected CSOs and increasing their
activities and output.
The first activity involves a ten day training on how to
research the expenditure and distribution of public funds by
respective municipalities. Eight members of CSOs, two from each
municipality, will attend the training. This training will be
provided by an experienced ohu researcher, who has experience with
training journalists on investigative journalism tools and
techniques. The first part of the training will teach the attendees
how to create and maintain databases, and how to apply them for
research purposes. The second part will teach them how to utilize
local online resources to track the expenditure of money, how to
use Google Advanced Search, DTSearch, tools and archiving. In the
third part the trainees will be asked to apply the skills and
techniques they learned in the training. This will ensure that they
have gained the skills and are able to practice them.
The second activity involves a one-day lecture will acquaint the
trainees with the anti-corruption legal and institutional
framework, focusing in particular on three indispensable laws: Law
on the Declaration, Origin and Control of Property and Gifts of
Senior Public Officials, Law on Prevention of Conflict of Interest
and Law on Access to Official Documents. Local CSOs will also learn
how to gain access to public information/documents through
utilizing mechanisms foreseen in the Law on Access to Public
Documents. They will obtain in-depth information on which are the
mechanisms/institutions and procedures to address complains in
cases when requests to access public documents information are
refused. The third activity involves monitoring and guiding the
independent research by CSOs. In a period of four months, after the
training is finished, CSOs will research the expenditure of public
funds of their respective municipalities. The trainees will be
divided in groups of two (according to the municipality they come
from) to conduct the research. Throughout this period the CSOs will
be guided by ohu staff in carrying out the research, advising them
and offering them support to conclude the research
successfully.Fourth activity involves supporting the CSOs to
publish their research and distribute it to the media throughout
Kosovo in order to reach their targeted communities as well as the
wider Kosovo public. Throughout the research the CSOs will submit
requests for access to official documents to respective
institutions. The purpose is two-fold, first to test the
understanding and the application of the Law on Access to Official
Documents in the selected municipalities and related institutions.
This will show the degree of transparency of municipalities and
will acquaint CSOs with the benefits of this law. Second CSOs will
learn to utilize mechanisms derived from the law in order to obtain
those information that are not available through online research.
The statistics on the application of this law will be included in
the final reports of CSOs.The partner organization in the project,
Communication for Social Developments (CSD), is responsible for
facilitating contact with other local CSOs. They will manage the
selection process and everything that that entails. The partner CSO
will themselves also attend the training provided by Organization
ohu. 7. Management Team
Please list project staff proposed for implementation of the
action. If applicable, indicate if any experts will be engaged.
Indicate also if any volunteers will be involved.
Qndrim Bunjaku: Lead Researcher, member of ohu staff for five
years now, works as researcher and developer of databases which
constitute an essential part of ohu research on corruption,
clientelism, patronage, etc. Qndrim has educational background in
economics and computer science.Arton Demhasaj: Legal Advisor and
Project-manager now leads the Office of Legal Advisor, has been
monitoring the work of Kosovo courts and prosecution, involved in
the reviewing of Kosovo anticorruption legal and institutional
framework in cooperation with OHU! partners throughout Kosovo.
Arton Demhasaj holds two bachelor degrees, in political sciences
and law from the University of Prishtina. Also holds an MA in
political sciences and is continuing an MA on Law at the same
university.Lorik Bajrami: Executive Director of ohu and long-time
Project Manager of the Legal Advising Office has led numerous
projects since the establishment of OHU! and has contributed in the
production of reports, analysis and recommendations on continuous
basis. Lorik has educational background in journalism and political
science, having graduated in both at the University of
Prishtina.Bardha Nikoliqi: Finance Officer, a senior year student
at the University of Prishtina, Faculty of Economics. She has
worked as an accountant and office administrator for a number of
organizations and private businesses. Bardha is in charge of
finances and bookkeeping for ohu.Florie Xhemajli: Editor-in-chief
of Preportr (a product of ohu-established Kosovo Center for
Investigative Journalism KCIJ) is a long-time member of ohu,
manages and supervises the research of journalists, edits and
proof-reads all the materials before their publication. Florie
holds a BA in Sociology and is an MA candidate at the University of
Prishtina, Sociology Department.Alban Bokshi: Project-manager and
fund-raiser, is responsible for project-proposals, fund-raising,
also manages and supervises the work of KCIJ, edits and proof-reads
the materials before their publication, prepares and edits the
reports for ohu and KCIJ donors. Alban holds a BA in European
Studies and Poltical Science-International Relations from the
American University in Bulgaria and an MA in Contemporary European
Studies from the University of Sussex, UK.SECTION III
Institutional Capacity
1. Brief description of your organization
Please describe the organizations main areas of work and the
role it plays in the community. Shortly describe the level of
cooperation with other sectors and networking. Indicate the number
of staff employed. Please limit your response to ONE PAGE.
Organization ohu was established in September 2005 with the aim
to fight political corruption, or what is sometimes called high
corruption, and consolidate the rule of law and democracy in Kosovo
through research, monitoring, watchdog and advocacy activities. For
a decade the organization has been engaged in anti-corruption
activities scrutinizing the work of Kosovo institutions such as
Kosovo Government, Kosovo Parliament, Kosovo courts and
prosecutors, public companies like KEK, PTK and the Airport, the
privatization process, etc. Monitoring activities were usually
followed by a report providing analyses and identifying obstacles
and problems towards fighting corruption in Kosovo and would often
conclude with advocacy and awareness-raising activities to put
pressure on the institutions to improve their performance against
corruption.
To further its goal of fighting corruption and considering the
need for deeper investigative stories to uncover corruption links,
ohu established its journalistic wing, namely the Kosovo Centre for
Investigative Journalism (KCIJ). KCIJ was established in 2011 with
the main objective to increase independent investigative reporting.
This has developed into a medium for journalists who have skills,
will and professional preparation to make a difference on the media
sector. Since then KCIJ has published extensive investigative
reports through its newspaper Preportr, distributed via two daily
Kosovo newspapers and its online publication. Hundreds of cases of
misuses of power and corruption were reported. KCIJ reports had
moved Kosovo Parliament on making the misuse of public money an
intensive part of discussion, while a whole session of Parliament
was dedicated to the findings of the newspaper in the end of 2012.
Journalists and editors of KCIJ were also engaged on debates and
discussions about investigative and independent journalism in
Kosovo through different means and events such as roundtables, TV
debates, and podcasts and discussions through social media.
Often the topics of the supplement Preportr focus on exposing
the discriminate manner of governance and policy making process
biased to the people that are connected with one or other political
party. It exposes the lack of the principle of indiscrimination on
the use of public resources, meaning that there is no equal access
and opportunities of people to the public goods. Most recently KCIJ
published a number of research stories, such as the story on the
extent of political patronage in Kosovo institutions, a research on
the misuse and the smuggling of cancer drugs and an issue on the
financing of political parties.Currently ohu and KCIJ together
employ twelve people, five out of whom are women working as
managers and journalists. 2. Organizations Experience in organizing
cultural events
Please provide a short overview of the organizations recent
experience in organizing cultural events defining specific success
achieved. Indicate partnerships and cooperation with other
stakeholders that may have led to your success. Extent to which the
applicant organization has demonstrated leadership ability within
their sector of expertise and the capacity to provide support and
services to constituents.
Please limit your response to ONE PAGE.
3. Other Donors
Please list the names of other donors that have supported your
organization through direct grants.
Civil Rights DefendersFree Press Unlimited
Open Society Institute
Kosovo Foundation for Open Society
Democratic Society Promotion
4. Annual Budget Review
Please provide annual budget of the formal applicant for the
last three years.
YEARANNUAL BUDGET
( in USD)NUMBER OF RECEIVED GRANTS
2012144670.006
2013119939.007
2014159221.0010
Certification
I hereby certify that the information contained herein and
attached hereto is complete and accurate to the best of my
knowledge.
__________________________________
____________________________
Head of Organization
SignatureDate: _____________________
Stamp
See reports by Transparency International on Kosovo at HYPERLINK
"http://www.transparency.org/country#KOS"
http://www.transparency.org/country#KOS and reports by Organization
ohu at HYPERLINK "http://www.cohu.org" www.cohu.org and HYPERLINK
"http://www.preportr.com" www.preportr.com. For other local
organizations see HYPERLINK "http://levizjafol.org/folnew/"
http://levizjafol.org/folnew/ and HYPERLINK
"http://www.kdi-kosova.org/en/index.php"
http://www.kdi-kosova.org/en/index.php.
See our report 100 million at HYPERLINK
"http://preportr.com/sq/Parate-dhe-politika/100-Milion-92"
http://preportr.com/sq/Parate-dhe-politika/100-Milion-92 "and
Buying political territory with public money at HYPERLINK
"http://preportr.com/sq/Parate-dhe-politika/Blerja-e-territorit-politik-me-paran-publike-46"
http://preportr.com/sq/Parate-dhe-politika/Blerja-e-territorit-politik-me-paran-publike-46
See Preportr webpage at: HYPERLINK
"http://preportr.com/en-us/Home" http://preportr.com/en-us/Home
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