Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (www.ccmr-bg.org) invites you to the launch of Almanac on Security Oversight in the Western Balkans.

Representatives of seven civil society organisations from Belgrade, Podgorica, Priština, Sarajevo, Skopje, Tirana and Zagreb will present their findings of three-year long research on key achievements and weaknesses in the accountability of security sectors to and what effect this has on the countries’ democratic transition. Besides the authors, Mr. Saša Janković, the Ombudsperson of the Republic of Serbia, will be a keynote speaker. Please confirm attendance by Friday 23 March 2012 at: office@ccmr-bg.org or 011/3287 334.

At the panel following issues will be discussed:

• Are local militaries, police, intelligence services, judiciaries transparent enough?
• Do the citizens know how much the security sector costs?
• Why the parliaments insufficiently oversee security institutions?
• What are the greatest achievements and biggest challenges in security sector reforms (SSR)?
• Who and what are the drivers and spoilers of reforms?
• What are the similarities and what are the differences in the SSR in the region?

The Almanac on Security Oversight in the Western Balkan is a key output of a three-year long collaborative research project of seven Western Balkan think-tanks focused on improving the capacity of civil society organisations to map and monitor security sector governance and encourage security sector reform in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia.

The unique component of this project has been an attempt to advance the methodology for mapping and monitoring security sector reform which was originally developed by the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy. At the launch of Almanac’ the grades for quality of parliamentary control and oversight, general and financial transparency will be presented.

The partners of this project, which was entitled “Civil Society Capacity Building to Map and Monitor SSR in the Western Balkans” and which ran from early 2009 to early 2012 include: Analytica, Skopje; Belgrade Centre for Security Policy - BCSP (Belgrade); the Centre for Security Studies (CSS), Sarajevo; the Center for Democracy and Human Rights (CEDEM), Podgorica; the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS), Pristina; the Institute for International Relations (IMO), Zagreb; and the Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM), Tirana. Additionally, the project was supported by DCAF and funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

For more information on the project and the event please contact Gorana Odanović, researcher in the BCSP at: gorana.odanovic@ccmr-bg.org.