Eleven representatives from civil society organizations, activists and grassroots groups participated in the event, where they were invited to share their opinion on a list of questions to be posed to local mayor candidates in the municipality of Kukes, Tropoja, Has and Mirdita ahead of the polls.
The questions were generated by in-depth interviews BIRN Albania held in the above mentioned municipalities in the last two months, in order to identify citizens’ concerns about the problems and challenges their area faces.
A shortlisted number of questions will be used to conduct interviews with mayor candidates ahead of the polls. The interviews will be published in a special page of BIRN Albania’s online publication Reporter.al
BIRN Albania will hold in total ten regional roundtables during the months of April, covering the 61 municipalities that emerged from the July 2014 administrative reform.
The roundtables are part of the project on ‘Accountability in Local Governance through Citizen Participation and Civic Journalism,’ supported by the US Embassy in Albania Democracy Small Grants Program.
This project aims to bridge the gap between local voters and mayoral candidates ahead of the 2015 local elections, by strengthening the capacities of CSOs, grassroots organizations, activists and the media in order to identify and stimulate public debate on the key issues facing local communities.