MEDIA
Mostar Citizens' Assembly July 2021
In July 2021, a Citizens’ Assembly was held in Mostar in accordance with the standards of deliberative democracy, on the topic “How the City of Mostar can improve the cleanliness of public space and make it more pleasant.” The Citizens’ Assembly, which lasted for four consecutive weekends, consisted of a learning phase on the topic, and a deliberation phase during which recommendations were developed, with the aim to find sustainable solutions to the issue debated.
The citizens of Mostar showed great interest in participating in the Assembly and the participants described it as a positive experience that they would gladly repeat, believing that dialogue between citizens and local authorities is crucial for the promotion of democracy.
As part of the project „Building democratic participation in the City of Mostar“ implemented by the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe, the first Citizens’ Assembly in Mostar and in Bosnia and Herzegovina was held in July 2021. The Asembly brought together 47 randomly selected citizens representing the demographic structure of the City to deliberate on the topic “How the City of Mostar can improve the cleanliness of the public space and make it more pleasant” and develop a series of recommendations in line with this matter.
Find out more about the whole process in the video.
Take a look at the atmosphere during the learning phase when citizens, with the help of experts in the field of deliberative democracy, became acquainted with the methodology of such a process.
Find out what the deliberation phase and the drafting of the final recommendations that followed, looked like.
On 29 June 2021, a random selection of citizens of Mostar was carried out. As a reminder, 250 citizens of Mostar registered to participate, out of which 40 members and 8 alternates who will take part in the Citizens’ Assembly, have been randomly selected to take part in the Citizens’ Assembly. Selected citizens will deliberate upon, and make recommendations on the topic of the cleanliness of the city and maintenance of public spaces in Mostar, over four consecutive weekends in July. The recommendations will be presented to the City Council of Mostar.
On Saturday, 24 July 2021, the Mayor of the City of Mostar, Mario Kordić, addressed the participants via video message at the Mostar Citizens’ Assembly.
The Congress of Local and Regional authorities of the Council of Europe, together with the City of Mostar, organised the first session of the Citizens’ Assembly of Mostar, as part of the first deliberative process of this kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Southeastern Europe. The inaugural session was addressed by Bernd Vöhringer, President of the Chamber of Local Authorities within the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe; Bojana Urumova, Head of the Council of Europe Office in Sarajevo; Salem Marić, President of the City Council of the City of Mostar; and Radmila Komadina, Advisor to the City of Mostar.
The second day of the inaugural session of the Mostar Citizens’ Assemly aimed to introduce the citizens of Mostar with the situation on the ground, in respect of the cleanliness and maintenance of their city and with ways to manage such a problem. While the City administration of Mostar provided participants with current information on the situation in the City, local and international experts shared their experiences on the matter.
Experience sharing: Milan Mandrapa, Director of the Public Utility Company Trebinje
Experts’ views on the topic: Maja Popovac, Professor, Džemal Bijedić University
Experts’ views on the topic
On 17 July the members of the Assembly learned about the maintenance and re-use of public spaces from the experts from Italy and Austria and about positive experiences from Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Veles (North Macedonia) regarding the waste management and cleanliness of the city.
On 17 July a second session of the selected citizens participating in the Mostar Citizens’ Assembly was organised.
The web portal Pogled.ba talked with the Mayor of Mostar Mr. Mario Kordić and the President of the City Council of Mostar Mr. Salem Marić about the importance of the Citizens’ Assembly for the City of Mostar, the next steps and the sustainability of this project in Mostar and other cities throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The Citizens’ Assembly of Mostar as the first deliberative process of this kind in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in focus of the Al Jazeera Balkans TV show “Kontekst”, hosted by Ms Marina Ridjic. Mr Haris Nazdraić, city councillor of the City of Mostar, Mr Damir Kapidžić, expert on deliberative democracy and member of the design team of the Citizens’ Assembly of Mostar and Mr Karl-Heinz Lambertz, rapporteur of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe on deliberative democracy discussed the results of such a unique process in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as the future of deliberative democracy in the country as a complement and a support to the work of local authorities.
The web portal Pogled.ba in conversation with Mr Stewart Dickson, Spokersperson of the Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe on the observation of local and regional elections. As a member of the Reflection Group on Mostar, Mr Dickson shared his opinion on Mostar and on the importance of the implementation of projects related to deliberative democracy.
On 16 November 2021, the City Council of the City of Mostar held its thirteenth regular session. The City Councillors dedicated the seventh item on the agenda to the discussion on the Action Plan for the implementation of the recommendations of the Citizens’ Assembly of Mostar. After the presentation of the methodology and of the Rulebook of the deliberative process by the representatives of the Citizens’ Assembly of Mostar to the City Councillors, the City Council of the City of Mostar, unanimously adopted the Action Plan on the implementation of the Mostar Citizens’ Assembly recommendations.