Workshop on Monitoring and Evaluation of Performance of National Minority Councils Took Place
On 21 April, the ECMI Cluster Justice & Governance organised a closed workshop on exploring possibilities for monitoring and evaluation of performance (functionality and/or impact) of the national minority councils in five countries: Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. The focus on these five countries comes from conceptual similarities between their minority institutions, which stem from some sort of a domino-effect and “institutional transplantation” built on the Hungarian model of 1993. However, transplanting also brought about some transforming and each of the concepts has its own national peculiarities. Despite a lot of literature about these bodies and their legal set-up, there is a substantive gap in the empirical research on their effectiveness and impact. Against this background, the very rationale of the workshop “Monitoring and Evaluation of Performance of National Minority Councils” was to explore the possibilities of designing monitoring methodology, the ways to test it, and the prospects for future joint research and action projects.
The workshop was held online in two sessions. The first session was focused on the national minority councils and their core features relevant for monitoring/evaluation. Balazs Dobos presented on Hungary, Antonija Petričušić on Croatia, Goran Bašić on Serbia, Danijela Vuković-Ćalasan on Montenegro and Lara Sorgo presented the case of Slovenia.
The following session was then devoted to the monitoring/evaluation design, building on some previous experiences. David Smith, Levente Salat, Roberta Medda-Windischer, Andreea Cârstocea, and Sonja Wolf shared their experience in evaluation design. These inspiring presentations provoked productive discussions and lead to some important conclusions on further research and action.
The workshop reflects the Cluster’s continuous work on institutional setups for minority participation in public affairs, and complements the Cluster’s activities in two projects: COST Action ENTAN and the “Autonomy Arrangements in the World”. You can find more information about these projects on the Cluster's subpage.
