On December 12, 2025, in Prilep, the training “Monitoring Municipal Public Procurement” was organized for representatives of civil society organizations, public institutions, local media and interested citizens from the municipalities of Prilep and Krushevo. The training was organized by Finance Think – Economic research and policy institute “Open Contracts – Fair Communities: Monitoring Local Public Procurement for Integrity.”
The aim of the training was to increase knowledge about access to public procurement data, ways of using it, the key phases of the procurement procedure, as well as the critical points and challenges in public procurement. During the training, participants were introduced to tools for searching public procurements, reviewing different segments of this field, open data, the implementation of public procurement procedures, and other areas of interest. The main trainer was Goran Davidovski, Deputy Head of Department at the Public Procurement Bureau.
As part of the training, representatives of TI–Macedonia presented the Integrity Watch Platform – https://integritywatch.mk/ . Integrity Watch Platform is developed by Transparency International – Macedonia within the project “Integrity Watch in the Western Balkans and Turkey: Civil society combating corruption with political integrity data” financially supported by the European Union and the regional project SMART Balkans – “Civil Society for Shared Society in the Western Balkans” funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Norway.
In front of the the participants, the functionalities of the platform were presented, including its components and how data can be filtered, compared and used to detect corruption risks. Special sections of the platform were demonstrated, explaining what data is included in its three areas: financing of political parties, public procurement and exploitation of mineral resources and hydropower plants. The training provided an opportunity for discussion among participants, who shared insights based on their experiences on how the platform can be used, what data could be included in the future and how it can be shared and promoted to a larger number of users. This was an excellent opportunity to promote the platform at local level and to familiarize institutions, civil society organizations and media from this region of Macedonia with it.
