Forum – Center for Strategic Research and Documentation was established in 1997 as a non-governmental organization dedicated to researching strategic aspects and solutions to current local, national and regional issues. The Center played a significant role in strengthening the role of the civil sector and increasing its influence in the creation of national policies aimed at achieving the necessary standards for Euro-Atlantic integration of the Republic of Macedonia. Forum CSRD is a non-profit organization that fully relies on grants and donations from foreign donors, foundations, companies and other organizations that recognize the results of what the Center is doing in order to create a better social climate and better governance in Macedonia. Today, the organization actively works to involve citizens in the processes of participative democracy by educating hundreds of citizens and civic activists on how to fulfill their needs and ideas within the social flows and influence the decision-makers.

Forum – Center for Strategic Research and Documentation was established with the intention to initiate, support and enable debates of relevant stakeholders in creating coherent and practical public policies in the improvement and acceleration of democratic processes in the Republic of Macedonia.

Forum CSRD delivers excellence in strategic research findings on the processes of democratization of society and decentralization of power. Together with other think-tank organizations, we make a significant contribution in presenting the balance of the situation in society as a contribution to objectively based public policy documents.

In order to realize our mission and vision, we devotedly develop our institutional capacities. Institutional memory, developed expertise and partnership relations with other think tank organizations, in the period until 2020, we’ll focus on production and communication of objective analyzes and effective recommendations for public policies in the field of democratization of society through the support of civic activism, advocacy for good governance, professionalization and independence of the media and decentralization of the government, through analysis of the budgetary processes in the units of the local self-government and the policies for balanced Regional development, as well as advocacy for increasing the competences of the local self-government within the municipalities.

The core of our working team are a dozen top analysts and trainers assisted by 5 other coordinators, assistants and logistics officers. The contribution of our Board of Directors comprised of credible representatives from the social and academic community is significant in the design and prioritization of research and training activities. We implement most of the projects jointly with our partner civil society organizations.

The values ​​of the organization, accepted by its employees, are a key component of its culture. Operatively, they constitute the basis for ethical decision-making for the actions of each member of the organization. Forum highlights in particular the following values:

– Professionalism: consistently demonstrating the highest standards of professional practice and responsible behavior.
– Integrity: showing sincerity, openness and fair behavior in every training, debate and any other work situation.
– Commitment and loyalty: care for delivery of the best to collaborators, organization and community.
– Empathy: an aspiration to see things on the side of others and showing understanding to them.
– Individualization: respecting individual differences and legitimacy of different interests and needs in every situation.

The core of the program focus of Forum CSRD remains the processes of democratization of society as a whole. Complementary to this are the aspects of democratization in the process of decentralization of the government and encouraging the balanced regional development.
In this framework defined program focus on the Forum, strategic thematic areas with first priority of engagement (priority of use and development of existing capacities) are the following:

• Support to civic activism (training support for development and use of individual capacities);
• Decentralization (democratization in the processes related to local and local self-government and in the policies for balanced regional development);
• Media (media independence and professionalism of media workers).

In addition to these thematic areas in which the Forum acts as an initiator and holder of project activities, according to the indicated possibilities and further developed capacities, Forum together with other partner organizations will participate in the following thematic areas (thematic areas of the second priority):

• Transparency and participation in the work of central and local government;
• Relations between communities;
• Human rights;
• Normative activity and good practices for their implementation.