On June 28, 2001 the senior program staff of the
Center for the Study of Democracy and of the United Nations Development
Programme to Bulgaria held a meeting to discuss the Memorandum
of Understanding ("Certified Partnership" Agreement), signed in
late 2000, for cooperation on issues of common interest and
exchange of information and ideas between the two
organizations.
UNDP Deputy Resident Representative Ms. Trine
Lund-Jensen, CSD President Dr. Ognian Shentov, and the staff
members present outlined the major issues from their programs,
which could serve as points for possible cooperation. These
included the integration of CSD's anticorruption initiative
Coalition 2000 into UNDP's local governance initiative; joint
activities on the local Ombudsman, the Ombudsman on Gender;
training of Parliamentarians; CSD/UNDP IT for Development
Initiative. Ideas for augmenting the Draft Outline of the second
CCF were discussed. These covered the following areas: establishing
a "Vulnerability Index" for measuring project impact and supporting
social assessments for the next CCF period, making local NGOs' and
local stakeholders' initiatives more prominent, obtaining more
visibility of the Early Warning System through media and
communication channels, securing of E-signature secondary
legislation, making more explicit the anti-corruption aspect of
CCF, etc. Regular follow-up meetings will be held in the future,
and the next one was scheduled for September, 2001.
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