Finance Think at the Civil Society High-Level Conference in Ljubljana

Economy, prosperity, and stability are voted as the most significant benefits for Slovenia from joining the EU. 🌍💼📈
Can we learn from their experience and speed up our reforms? 🤔✨ The growth plan, the Western Balkans’ path to EU accession, and socio-economic convergence will be discussed at today’s conference: “Civil Society High-Level Conference: Continuing the success story of EU enlargement – bringing benefits to the Western Balkans in advance of accession” 📢
As a member of the European Economic and Social Committee, Executive Director Blagica Petreski is participating in this conference. 👩‍💼💬
EESC – European Economic and Social Committee

We participate in the annual People Powered meeting in Warsaw

💡📊 Participatory budgeting and gender-responsive budgeting are two tools that yield results in creating more effective, efficient, and inclusive policies.
🌍🤝 Finance Think employs these tools and generates findings on their impact. Last week, as a member of the international network People Powered, we participated in the network’s annual meeting, which was held in Warsaw, Poland.
📣🌐 Our findings, experiences, and practices were showcased in the introductory session, in the presence of participants from 47 countries.
🛠️📈✨ At the same time, we enriched our knowledge about innovative democratic tools for building better and more inclusive policies.

Our contribution to the publication of the Aspen Institute

📣  Our brief on “Digitization and Delivery of Public Services” contributed to the publication “Digitization and Democratization in #WesternBalkans” by Aspen Institute Germany. 😊

This publication provides an overview of the recommendations developed at the conference in Podgorica in December 2023.

Read more 📖: rb.gy/kcnztb

Memorandum of Cooperation with the Fiscal Council

🤝 Today we are proud to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Fiscal Council of North Macedonia! 🇲🇰
Established for the first time in 2023, this Council plays a key role in overseeing #fiscal policy, ensuring accountability and transparency in the use of public finances.
💰 Our #collaboration will involve joint initiatives in areas such as fiscal analysis, sustainability of public debt, efficiency of public spending, 📈 monitoring of capital investments, and other related fields.
📊💼 #FiscalCouncil #Finance #Accountability #Transparency

Finance Think with initial activities in the European Economic and Social Committee

A productive start to the week in Brussels! 🇪🇺🌟 Reflecting on our initial activities and contributions to the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). Our Executive Director Blagica Petreski met with colleagues and partners from Finance Think at the institutions of the European Union in Brussels, Belgium, on April 22, 2024.

🌍🚰🏡  Participating in the meeting of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), the critical aspects of accessibility and adequacy of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services for economic development and household well-being were discussed. We take pride in supporting policies for sustainable development and improving living standards.

#EESC #Development #Wellbeing

The new Policy Study 51 examines the fiscal space in the Western Balkans

⚠️ How much did the #food and #energy price crisis cost us?
⚠️ How did the crises #constrain the fiscal space?
Our latest 📖 Policy Study 5️⃣1️⃣ brings an overview and analysis of the fiscal space in the Western Balkans countries through recent crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and the food and energy price crisis.
📌 Moderate debt and partially stable budget deficits before the pandemic allowed Western Balkan governments to provide significant budgetary #support to cope with the pandemic crisis in 2020 and 2021.
📌 Although signs of recovery were visible in 2021, the fiscal space further #deteriorated as a result of the geopolitical conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
📌 Results indicate that the possibility of implementing fiscal #packages is significantly determined by the fiscal space created in non-crisis periods.
📌 It is necessary to build up budget #reserves during non-crisis periods to provide room for intervention when needed most.
📌 In 2022, #subsidies for household electricity in North Macedonia reached 3.2% of GDP or 9.2% of public expenditures.
📌 Findings suggest a decrease in spending on #healthcare and #social protection in favor of increased budgetary support for electricity subsidies.
📌 Findings point to the need for: 1️⃣. #reduction of electricity subsidies by the end of 2024, accompanied by direct transfers to the most vulnerable households, enabling fiscal space for more and higher-quality other public services, as well as 2️⃣. #increased investments in the energy sector, accompanied by improved energy efficiency on the consumer side.
Link to the full study: rb.gy/649l2e
The study was created with the support of SMART Balkans.
🇲🇰 Finance Think
🇦🇱 ACIT
🇲🇪 @ISSP.me
🇷🇸 Center for Advanced Economic Studies – CEVES
🇽🇰 Instituti GAP
🇧🇦 CREDI
WEBecon Network