The Small Grants anti-corruption projects of the local partners started in the months of November and December as part of Coalition 2000 “Clean Future” campaign. A wide array of anti-corruption activities were launched by the Bulgarian Youth Legion Stefan Stambolov (Smolyan), the Black Sea Legal Community (Burgas), the Center for Political Studies (Shumen), the Revived Civil Society Regional Association (Pleven), the Lecturers NGO (Plovdiv) and the Foundation for the Development of Private Enterprise (Vratsa).
Press conferences were held to present the goals and objectives to the general public and the local media. In addition to the Public Awareness Campaign activities the local partners gave start to important initiatives aimed at transparency and accountability of the municipal administrations: a Civic Observer was elected in Smolyan, in addition to the Income Transparency initiative already launched in four municipalities in the same district; a Memorandum for cooperation was signed in Shumen between the Center for Political Studies and the new city mayor Vesselin Zlatev; a draft-memorandum was presented to the municipal authorities by Lecturers NGO in Plovdiv; in Pleven the institution of the Local Ombudsman (public mediator) was inaugurated with the assistance of the newly elected mayor Naiden Zelenogorski; public discussions were held in Burgas and in Varna; a Specialized Monitoring of Corruption in the business sector was started in Vratsa etc.
