Increasing Civic Engagement in the Digital Agenda – ICEDA

The ICEDA project supported the civil society organisations (CSOs) in helping institutions and citizens benefit from the implementation of the goals of the Digital Agenda for the Western Balkans to integrate the region into the European Union.

The most positive outcome of the ICEDA project was the reshape of the responsible institutions’ mindset to include civil society into the process of decision making and making them more open to the contribution of the civil society expertise. Project has made people more aware of digitalisation process and how to keep the data safe in this process. Capacity building of relevant stakeholders has been increased through training the media representatives, civil society actors and public institutions representative, and sharing their experiences at national and regional level. Lastly, the ICEDA project contributed to the utilisation of the central platform for e-services in the countries and to the preparation of the new Digital Agenda (DA) strategy and e-governance strategy.

The results and impact on digitalisation and Digital-Agenda-related process in the WB countries would have not been achieved without the ICEDA project as the project had a dominating and pioneering role in the region.

The evaluation proved that the ICEDA project was of high relevance to the regional DA strategy challenge; it had satisfactory coherence as the project fit adequately with other initiatives and projects; it was both efficient and effective; it is sustainable in some countries more than other, however, it has encouraged the change in the collaboration culture in all partner countries; and based indicators and feedback, it has had a positive and good impact.

The ICEDA project was implemented by partners in 5 Western Balkan countries of Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia and the e-Governance Academy (eGA).

The role of eGA was to advise and empower:

• Gave input to and consulted the research process and reports
• Spoke in several online and onsite events
• Made two podcasts
• Organised two sessions at the e-governance conference
• Conducted 10 trainings and 4 webinars for 52 participants
• Organised a study visit for 23 people
• Informed Estonian Embassies, President and Ministry of Foreign Affairs

The project was co-funded by the European Union and Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs from the funds of development cooperation and humanitarian aid.