Start date: June 18, 2001
End date: March, 2011
Project budget: $4,772,922
Objectives
- Political parties democratize internal structures, enhance grassroots level political activity, and fully integrate local party and constituent activity into overall party outreach, mobilization and communication efforts.
- Political parties develop political identity and ideological underpinning, and respond to citizens' concerns at the local and national levels, utilizing IRI survey research data and increasingly relying on their own statistically-sound survey research.
Components
- Political Party Training – IRI provides training for major governing and opposition parties on internal and external communications, basic campaign organization, grass roots organization, message delivery, and local chapter development.
- Public Opinion Research – IRI conducts quarterly public opinion polls to assist parties identify priority issues, and develop responsive issue based programs.
Achievements/Impact
- Governing and opposition parties recognize the value of public opinion research and have incorporated its use to inform strategic messaging, issue development, and campaign planning and outreach.
- Political parties increasingly develop responsive, issue based programs, and an understanding that economic issues, as opposed to ethnic nationalism, are the top issues driving Macedonian citizens.
- Parties have developed an understanding of the importance of proactive political communication and direct citizen contact, and demonstrate improvement in implementing grass roots / issue based campaigns.
Sustainability/Legacy
The Ohrid Institute for Economic Strategies and International Affairs was founded in mid-2006 with seed funding from the National Endowment for Democracy as an independent, non-partisan policy institute.
Contact Information
Contact at USAID: Melita Cokrevska, AOTR mcokrevska@usaid.gov
Chief of Party: John Cavanaugh, jcavanaugh@iri.org
Information Officer: Ilina Mangova imangova@iri.org
Website: www.iri.org