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In the focus РУБРИКА
addition to the lack of research on fiscal know each other). This model of capacity
policies, there is insufficient coopera- building was proven as very efficient, it
tion between the experts, organizations provided high quality studies, however it
and economic journalists. Therefore also spontaneously established coopera-
the creation of a core of experts, orga- tion in the network.
nizations and economic journalists was
essential to encourage evidence-based The teams of civil society organiza-
debate, however also to encourage the tions, experts and journalists primarily
creation of evidence-based policies. mapped the public policies that entail
Hence, FISCAST-NET was created, an spending public money. The ranking of
umbrella of organizations, experts and the policies took place according to two
economic journalists which will moni- principles: the policies that spend vast
tor the fiscal finance and public policies, amounts of public money, that is, they
they will cooperate with each other and have a great coverage of the state bud-
they will provide credible recommenda- get; and the policies that cover a larger
tions based on evidence. FISCAST-NET target group, that is, they have great (po-
comprises of 13 organizations, with re- tential) impact on the citizens and the
gional and ethnic representation, 10 other stakeholders, Hence, nine public
economic experts and 9 economic jour- policies were selected: the policy of at-
nalists. In order to increase the research tracting direct foreign investments, con-
capacities, however also to set a unified struction of the highway section Demir
methodology which will be applied in Kapija – Smokvica, the dispersed higher
the analysis, trainings and workshops education studies, the investments in the
for cost-benefit analysis were organized. protection of the environment through
The entire capacity building process was waste management, the liberalization
organized on the basis of the principle of the electricity market, the policy of
of mutual learning, transfer of knowl- subsidized employment of young people,
edge and application of knowledge. Each the policy of a third child, the policy of
team had an economic expert, who had a subsidies in agriculture and the air pol-
role of a mentor, and an economic jour- lution in Tetovo. The analyses showed
nalist, who had a role of a “translator” of that part of the selected policies have
the research results in a message for the clear positive net current value, that is,
wider audience. In addition, the analy- their long-term benefits importantly ex-
ses went through a blind review pro- ceed the costs regardless of the fact that
cess (the reviewer and the team did not in the short run these costs (may) seem
important. In another part the policies
May 2016 37
