User:Raso mk/MOST

MOST (Macedonian MOCT) is Non-governmental citizen`s association from Republic of Macedonia. The main task of the organisation is to observe and to give opinion about Elections in the Republic of Macedonia. The MOST mission is to contribute for developing a more democratic, more stabile and prosperous Macedonia, trough involving the citizens in activities and projects that secure transparency, openness and responsibility of the governmental, political and electoral authority to true needs of the citizens. MOST was formed in May 2002 by representatives of 20 nongovernmental organizations. The Headquarters is located in Skopje. The current President is Darko Aleksov.

Mission
In order to accomplish the mission and goals of the organization, the activities of MOST are being conducted in the frames of the following programs:
 * Citizens education and involvement;
 * Responsive institutions;
 * Accountability and transparency;
 * Analysis and research.

Domestic monitoring of:

 * Macedonian parliamentary election, 2002 with 2,872 domestic observers on the Election day
 * Macedonian presidential election, 2004 with 3,305 domestic observers on the Election day
 * Macedonian autonomy referendum, 2004 with 3,701 domestic observers on the Referendum day
 * Macedonian parliamentary election, 2006 with 3,500 domestic observers on the Election day
 * Macedonian parliamentary election, 2008 with 3,500 domestic observers on the Election day

Foreign monitoring of:

 * Ukrainian presidential election, 2004
 * 1) Presidential elections in Ukraine (second round), November 2004, 31 observers
 * 2) Presidential elections in Ukraine (re-run of the second round), December 2004, 18 observers. Participation in OSCE/ ODIHR election monitoring missions
 * 3) Presidential elections in Ukraine (second round), November 2004, 1 observer
 * Local elections in Albania, October 2003, 2 observers from MOST in the frames of the NDI mission.
 * Parliamentary elections in Georgia, November 2003, 1 observer, in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.
 * Parliamentary elections in Albania, June 2005, 9 observers
 * Early Presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan, July 2005, 2 observers
 * Parliamentary elections in Moldova, March 2005, 1 observer in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.
 * Early Presidential elections in Kyrgyzstan, July 2005, 1 in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.
 * Parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan, November 2005, 1 observer in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.
 * Presidential elections in Kazakhstan, December 2005, 1 observer in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.
 * Parliamentary elections in Ukraine, March 2006, 18 observers
 * Local elections in Ukraine, November 2006, 2 observers
 * Presidential elections in Belarus, March 2006, 1 observer in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.
 * Parliamentary elections in Montenegro, September 2006, 1 observer in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.
 * General elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, September 2006, 1 observer in the frames of the OSCE/ODIHR.

Projects

 * The study visit in Croatia . Signing the Zagreb declaration on domestic observers - Commitment and motive In the period 25-29 Jun 2003, ODIHR and NEEDS in cooperation with NDI, organized the first European domestic observer forum in Zagreb. MOST participated in the forum as the only organization from Republic of Macedonia and had a brief presentation. The forum was significant because all participants have signed a document by which the general principles of the domestic non-partisan monitoring of elections were unified. Every signer has committed in its work to apply and respect the principles defined in the document.
 * The Conference Strengthening the cooperation between the Parliament and NGO's
 * Legal Reform Initiative
 * Mobile Parliament . The first project in the frames of the Parliamentary program was the project Mobile Parliament. It was supported by CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency). The project was a pilot phase and lasted 4 months. Within this period, 15 meetings were organized and attended by 42 MPs and 650 representatives of citizens’ associations and citizens. The project was important due to the involvement of MOST local partners.
 * Participation in OSCE Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting, on subject Election standards and commitments, June 2004, Vienna, Austria.
 * ENEMO. Participation in OSCE Human Dimension Implementing Meeting, October 2004, Warsaw, Poland. At the General Assembly of ENEMO held in October 2004 in Warsaw, MOST gained the status of full member. ENEMO is an association of citizen’s organizations from 17 countries from the formal Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe. These organizations are leaders in domestic monitoring of election processes in the native countries. More than 110 election processes were monitored and hundreds of thousands of observers trained by them in their home native countries.
 * Civil Office -two representatives of MOST realized a study visit to the Civil Office in the Parliament of Hungary, in June 2004. The gained knowledge was used in the period of founding the Office for contact between the NGOs and Parliament of R. Macedonia.
 * Experts meting on monitoring elections organized by OSCE/ ODIHR and State Election Commission of the Russian federation, November 2005, Moscow, Russia.
 * Participation in the conference on topic: Ukraine – perspectives”, Wilton Park, January 2005, London, Great Britain.
 * Participation in the forth Assembly of the World Movement for Democracy (WMD), April 2006, Istanbul, Turkey.
 * Participation in OSCE Human Dimension Implementation Meeting, October 2006, Warsaw, Poland.
 * Participation in the conference on topic: Application of IT in the election process and implementation of the monitoring methodology, organized by NEEDS, December 2006, Bratislava, Slovakia
 * One representative of the Central Office and one representative of the Executive Board of MOST participated in MCIC – Skopje, September 2006 in the study visit to Tischner European University (TEU), Krakow, Poland in November 2006. The visit was part of the project Common Voice Project – evolution of electoral systems.
 * Participation in the OSCE/ ODIHR training for short term observers in Kyrgyzstan, November 2006.
 * Human Dimension Supplementary seminar – OSCE, May 2007 Warsaw, Poland
 * One representative of MOST took part in the expert conference on topic: Improving the management and combat against corruption – Brussels, Belgium
 * A representative of MOST participated in a study visit to ECNL in Budapest (in the frames of the Institutional support provided by CIRa), April 2007
 * Candidate for membership in the Civil Society Development of European Commission.

Organizational structure
In 2004 on the bases of the evaluation developed by an external evaluator, the structure of the organization was improved. The managing was separated from the making decisions process. The members of the Assembly elected a new Executive Board composed of 7 members and a new President of the Board was elected as well. The current establishment of the bodies and organs of the Citizens’ association is as follows:

Assembly
MOST’s assembly is consisted of 35 members coming from the partner organizations/MOST founders. Each of the organizations has at least one member participating in the assembly. In accordance with the Statute of the organization, the assembly convenes at least once a year. The composition of the assembly is with secured gender and ethnic balance. The Assembly is with 28% or 10 women, 72% or 25 men, 74% or 26 Macedonians, 23% or 8 Albanians and 3% Roma.

Executive Board
The executive board is consisted of 7 members including the President of the EB and 3 Vice Presidents. The gender and the ethnic balance are preserved. There are 15 % women and 30% of the members are from other ethnic groups. The Executive director and the Secretary General participate the sessions without the right to vote (they are not members of the EB).

Supervisory Commission
The Supervisory Commission is consisted of 5 members. None of these persons is a member of the Executive board. The statutory role of the Supervisory Commission is to control the financial work of the organization and to issue reports that are further on discussed on the Executive Board and Assembly sessions. Upon a demand, the Supervisory Commission can conduct an audit and issue a report.

Team for implementation
The team for implementation is responsible for every day operations and projects implementation. Program coordinators run the Programs. Besides that, there are coordinators and assistants of projects that are conducted in the frames of the programs. The Executive director is responsible for supervising and managing the work of the entire organization including the HR support. Each of the employees has a record of accomplishments and long experience within the civil society sector in the country. However, Citizens’ Association MOST nurtures a tradition of permanent skills and capacity building through various types of trainings, internships and study trips for its employees.

Network
When it comes to MOST and the project implementation it could be said that MOST is a unique type of network. Actually, it is something between network and coalition. MOST is founded by the representatives of the CSOs from all parts of the country. A total of 19 local CSOs are part of the network which also participate in the process of decision making and supervising of the work of the organizational bodies including the Team for implementation of the projects. The network maintains the geographical and ethnical balance covering the entire territory of the Republic of Macedonia in counting all of the 84 municipalities and the City of Skopje. The benefits from this kind of cooperation are permanent exchange of experience, capacity building, super coverage of the territory and a sort of networking which is very important for the strengthening of the sector. The network in its full capacity can be used for research purposes as well.

Volunteers
The volunteers are the core of the MOST work. Since MOST works in direction to increasing the participation of the citizens in the processes of decision making, at least MOST can give citizens chance to take part in accomplishing the mission of the organization, to contribute towards more democratic, stable and prosperous Macedonia.

Partners
MOST conducts its activities in cooperation with partners and other domestic and international organizations as well as state institutions. Almost in all aspects of the implementation of the projects at national level, MOST includes the partner organizations:
 * Youth Centre for Prevention and Conflict Resolution Skopje 1
 * Association of the Albanian woman – Perspektiva Skopje 2
 * Centre for democratic development and integration Tetovo
 * Youth Council Gostivar
 * Youth Council Ohrid
 * Youth Cultural centre Bitola
 * Youth Council Prilep
 * Mediator Kavadarci
 * European Forum Gevgelija
 * Citizens of Strumica for democratic development Strumica
 * Citizen Delčevo
 * Ethno-forum Kočani
 * Association of financial workers Veles
 * Humanity Kumanovo
 * Centre for inter-ethnic cooperation and toleration Kičevo
 * Macedonian Centre for Independent Initiative Radoviš
 * Association for protection of Roma’s rights Štip
 * Regional centre for cooperation „Spektar“ Kriva Palanka
 * Euro - forum Struga

Besides the partner organizations, within the passed years MOST cooperated with other organizations from the civil sector:
 * Women’s Centre, Debar;
 * Humanity, Kumanovo;
 * Centre for multiethnic cooperation and tolerance, Kičevo;
 * Together we can achieve more, Skopje; etc

The successful cooperation on different initiatives was realized with International organizations: ECNL, Freedom House, NDI, OSCE Spillover monitoring mission to Skopje.

In order to provide sustainability of the projects and activities, MOST establishes partner relations with State institutions. Within the passed years MOST was conducting projects with the following partners: This cooperation is supported by permanent improvement of the capacities of the institutions through securing new information and resources that later on are taken over by them.
 * Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia,
 * Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Macedonia,
 * Ministry of Education and science of the Republic of Macedonia and
 * Ministry of Local self government of the Republic of Macedonia.