President Stevo Pendarovski for CIVIL. ( 29 November, 2019, at the Conference “Between Hopes and Reality”, dedicated to the successes, problems and perspectives of the NGO sector, and at the occasion of the celebration of CIVIL’s 20th anniversary)
“CIVIL started working at a turbulent time when our country was facing major humanitarian and security challenges. However, it did not focus only on that, but was trying to find solutions also to the new problems our society was and still is facing.
Out of the hundred successful activities of CIVIL, I will single out just a few that in my opinion have special significance.
First, it is the Citizen’s Charter as a reflection of the Universal Declaration. This Charter recognizes that true or real participation of citizens in shaping our society is necessary for overcoming the greatest challenges, such as poverty, violent extremism, growing inequality and climate change. The Charter is a call for civic activism to take its real position of an informal, but necessary controller over us politicians and officials in order for us to work for the common good.
This Citizen’s Charter, which many free-thinking people and civic associations have joined throughout the years, reaffirms the rights and freedoms that belong to all of us, such as the freedom of assembly or association, or the freedom of expression, according to which everyone has the right to share, discuss and promote their opinions and ideas, support the ideas of others or express disagreement.
These freedoms are key for CIVIL’s second activity for which I want to talk about, and that being the efforts for media freedom. In a situation of many years of media darkness, CIVIL launched the project “Civic Lenses” that had the goal through citizen journalism to contribute to liberation and decontamination of the media space and to encourage citizens to build a free society.
With Civic Lenses, CIVIL has contributed to strengthening of freedom of expression and media literacy. With the numerous conferences, seminars, campaigns and publications, you are doing very valuable work – you are educating the Macedonian public and promoting culture of dialogue.
Free media are one of the preconditions for genuine democracy. And here I come to the third segment that I would like to talk about, and that being free democratic elections. For 11 years, from 2008, CIVIL has been conducting election monitoring with new, efficient methodologies for observation and civic education on the right to vote. By advocating for democracy and the rule of law, you have embedded in our system advanced European standards and criteria that are important for the European integration.
The fourth group of projects address a particularly current topic, which is environmental protection. For years we have been witnessing the visible negative trends in this area and that is why we must act urgently and in continuity. Pollution and climate change are our reality nowadays, which impact our quality of life, health, economic processes, infrastructure.
Several weeks ago, I met with representatives of a dozen civil society organizations and initiatives who turned to me for support in this area. As President, I will publically call for increased engagement of several more competent bodies for mitigating the negative effects that we are all feeling. I know that CIVIL is doing much work in this field, and one of the newer projects titled the “The Greens Are Coming” gives a fresh momentum to the green agenda in North Macedonia.
By raising public awareness about the real issues and problems that not always are visible on the political front, the civil sector helps citizens shape society and thus directly contributes towards our efforts for transformation into a progressive and prosperous state.
I expect that in the upcoming period we will continue to build a democratic state in which the success of one will not be at the expense of the success of others, and in which the laws will apply to all – equally. In which rights and freedoms instead of privileges will be protected. And for dignity of man and the citizen to remain at the basis of our joint venture for a free and fair society”, said President Stevo Pendarovski at the formal event of CIVIL’s twentieth anniversary.
President Stevo Pendarovski shared on his Facebook page impressions and a photo album of the Conference “Between Hopes and Reality”, dedicated to the achievements, challenges and perspectives of civil society, where he participated as an honorary speaker.
Translation: N. Cvetkovska
