LSP Macedonia_ONA_Final Report.pdf

USAID Local Systems Practice June 2018

LOCAL SYSTEMS PRACTICE (LSP) ACTIVITY

LOCAL WORKS MACEDONIA | CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONAL NETWORK ANALYSIS (ONA)

JUNE 2018

This publication was produced for review by the United States Agency for International Development. It was prepared by LINC LLC and local partner, the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC).

USAID Local Systems Practice June 2018

Prepared by: Craig Hempfling, LINC; Megan McDermott, LINC; Jenna White, LINC; Patrick Sommerville, LINC;

Aleksandar Krzalovski, MCIC; Emina Nuredinoska, MCIC; Aleksandra Savevska, MCIC; Boris Ristovski, MCIC;

Monika Bozinoska, MCIC; and Jasmina Ristovska, MCIC

Front cover: Network map of Macedonian CSOs.

Acknowledgements: The author(s) would like to acknowledge all of our LSP consortium partners for their input throughout the process, the valuable assistance of MCIC support staff in ensuring a thorough and timely analysis, as well as all of the organizations who took the time to participate in the Network Analysis survey. These contributions are crucial for advancing our mutual efforts towards improved local development in Macedonia.

About Local Systems Practice: Local Systems Practice is a USAID-funded activity that directly assists multiple Missions, partners, and constituents to design and adaptively manage systems-based programs in complex environments. The concept has been designed to aid Missions and partners to overcome four specific challenges to effective Local Systems Practice through: a) Listening; b) Engagement; c) Discovery; and d) Adaptation. The Theory of Change underpinning the activity asserts that the application of systems tools to complex local challenges at multiple intervals throughout the program cycle will enhance the sustainability of programming, resulting in better-informed, measurable interventions that complement and reinforce the systems they seek to strengthen. The LSP team is composed of both development practitioners and research institutions to most effectively explore and implement systems thinking approaches with Missions, local partners and other local stakeholders. The activity is lead by LINC LLC with five sub-implementers: ANSER, the University of Notre Dame, AVSI, the University of Missouri, and Practical Action.

For more information on LSP and additional resources, please visit: www.localsystemspractice.org

For any questions or comments on the report, please contact:

Megan McDermott Program Associate, LINC LLC +1 (202) 640 5462 Ext. 6 mmcdermott@linclocal.org

This report is made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the terms of the award no. AID-OAA-A-16-00077.

Disclaimer: The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government.

USAID Local Systems Practice i June 2018

Table of Contents Table of Contents ..................................................................................................................................................... i

Executive Summary

Background & Objectives

Methodology

Findings & Analysis

Respondent Profiles

Network Analysis

How to Read This Report – Interpreting Network Maps

Overall Network Analysis

Overall Network

Sector-Based Sub-Networks & Analysis

Sector 1: Civil Society Development; Media & IT

Sector 2: Economic, Agriculture & Sustainable Development; Professional Associations

Sector 3: Democracy & Rule of Law

Sector 4: Humanities & Rights

Sector 5: Youth, Culture & Education

Sector 6: Environment & Health

Organizations Excluded Due to Survey Non-Response

Geographic Sub-Networks & Analysis

Geography 1: National-Level Actors

Geography 2: Regional-Level Actors

Geography 3: Region-by-Region Networks

Local Administrations’ Relationships with Development Actors

Local Administration Linkages with Development Actors

Grantor-Grantee Networks

Grantor-Grantee Relationships

Recommendations Going Forward

Recommendations for Local Works Program

Recommendations for ONA Instrument & Capacity

Annex 1: SurveyMonkey ONA Survey

Annex 2: ONA Roster & Kumu Coding Database

Annex 3: Organization Attributes - Sector and Services Provided

Annex 4: Organization Attributes - Sources of Funding

Annex 5: Additional Organizations

Annex 5: LSP Scoping Visit Meetings

USAID/Macedonia Local Works Organizational Network Analysis

USAID Local Systems Practice 1 June 2018

Executive Summary

This report presents the results of an Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) to support USAID/Macedonia’s Local Works team with insight into Macedonia’s development landscape, key development actors, and how they are networked. This exercise was conducted by USAID’s Local Systems Practice (LSP), led by LINC and supported by a Macedonian partner, Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC). Our objectives were to analyze local development actors and assess the dynamics, relationships and levels of influence between the actors; identify the most salient organizations with meaningful ties to other actors; inform Local Works strategies to strengthen local networks and build capacity to increase their effectiveness; and strengthen local capacity to track changing network dynamics over time through ongoing ONA.

ONA Roster: In line with the Research Plan submitted in March 2018, this ONA included stakeholder groups from civil society, public administration, private sector, media and education sectors. Our methodology relied on numerous resources and references to compile a database of 650 unique development-oriented organizations.

Through outreach to all of them via an opt-in survey, we developed a roster of 197 organizations and 34 local administrations to whom we administered online surveys; of these, 139 organizations and 25 local administrations responded. For each of the participating organizations, data was collected and is presented regarding their legal form, human resource levels, services performed, sources of funding, and network linkages with other organizations in the ONA.

Sub-Network Analyses: Relying on the survey data, and backed by quantitative data from other sources, this report disaggregates network analyses along four lines: i) Sectoral: Sub-networks based on seven development sectors that consolidate and include 18 formally-recognized CSO sectors; ii) Geographic: Sub-networks operating nationally versus regionally, as well as separate sub-networks for regional actors according to the eight Macedonian administrative regions; iii) Local Administration Relations: relationships between public administrations and development actors from the perspective of the local administrations; and iv) Grantor-Grantee Relationships: grantor-grantee relationships of four key grant-making programs in Macedonia. All these discrete analyses measure metrics in the strength of the overall network system and rank the top-ten network actors according to three actor-level metrics. In our sector-based analyses, we have, in many cases, highlighted certain actors with prominent network roles; these are not intended to be comprehensive, as the ONA roster was not defined by a specific sectoral boundary, so the inclusion or absence of any organization is not intended to reflect on their ability to serve future Local Works roles.

Findings Overview: This report presents findings for each of the individual sub-networks examined; brief highlights of some of the general findings include:

• Organizations whose primary sector is Civil Society Development were found to bridge the other sectoral sub-networks and serve as key network hubs. Since this sector overlaps and essentially serves the other development sectors with grants and capacity building, the Civil Society Development sector is included in the other sector analyses. In all analyses, the most commonly cited actors are FOSM, USAID CEP and MCIC, the three largest civil society donors in Macedonia and recognized sector leaders. Interestingly, when examining network centralities, organizations in the non-Civil Society Development sectors rank highly, indicating a propensity to act as information disseminators within and between their specific sector and the broader Civil Society Development sector.

• Due to the ONA methodology employed, only organizations that participated in the survey are included in the network analyses. Note that 58 of the 197 organizations in the roster did not complete the survey, despite opting in previously; therefore, they appeared on the survey roster. A number of these non-responsive organizations were cited by many other actors, in some cases more than actors included in the network

USAID Local Systems Practice 2 June 2018 analyses; we have therefore provided in this report a list of these prominent network actors, who should also be considered and encouraged to participate in future ONA initiatives.

• In the geography-based network analyses we examined organizations that operate on a national level versus regional or local levels. Due to the limitations in roster size, participation via the opt-in survey, and the generally lower capacity in the regions compared to Skopje, the regional maps are considerably less populated than the sectoral maps, making results more difficult to interpret. If an ONA exercise is replicated in the future – and particularly if Local Works adopts a regional approach – efforts should be made to both focus more intently on certain regions, as well as to build capacity of organizations outside Skopje.

• In examining local administrations’ relationships with development actors, there are very few organizations cited multiple times by different municipalities; in the network map of 223 actors, only 13 non-municipal organizations were cited multiple times, none more than four.

• Our last analysis focused on the relationships between grantors and grantees of four main civil society donors:

FOSM, MCIC, USAID CEP and EU Competitiveness. Analyzing networks based on these relationships – essentially financial linkages – can also be an effective way to evaluate networks and impact and can be quite simple to construct. The methodology could equally be applied to donors as well as local administrations or businesses contributing to development activities. This report offers several suggestions for adopting and improving similar analysis for Local Works going forward.

Recommendations: Throughout this report, we have provided recommendations in areas relevant to the subject matter; at the conclusion, we have summarized all the recommendations and included others more general in nature. Recommendations are organized along two lines: i) Recommendations for Local Works; and ii) Recommendations for the ONA Instrument.

USAID Local Systems Practice 3 June 2018

Background & Objectives Between February and June 2018, USAID’s Local Systems Practice (LSP), led by LINC, assisted USAID/Macedonia’s Local Works team to conduct an Organizational Network Analysis (ONA) of key local development actors that can potentially support future Local Works initiatives as Local Resource Organizations (LROs). In line with Local Works principles, LINC engaged a Macedonian partner, Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC) to assist with the collection of ONA data and subsequent analysis. This report presents the findings of the exercise.

Research Objectives

The overall objective of this ONA is to assist the USAID Local Works team to analyze local development networks and actors and assess the relationships and levels of influence between actors to help identify potential Local Works partners and stakeholders. Sub-objectives include:

• Identify the most salient organizations with meaningful ties to other network actors.

• Inform Local Works strategy and operational planning for strengthening local networks and recommend capacity building actions to increase the effectiveness of their initiatives and networks.

• Understand dynamics among network actors and their impact on success of individual organizations

• Create local capacity for longer-term tracking of shifts in influence and maturation of networks and linkages over time through ongoing mapping and future network updates.

Research Plan Overview

In March 2018, LINC finalized and presented an ONA Research Plan to USAID/Macedonia. The Research Plan outlines the research objectives, proposed methodology, entity (node) and linkage (vector) attributes, proposed stakeholder roster, and timeline. The potential roster of stakeholder groups outlined in the Research Plan includes organizations and development actors in the following sectors:

• Civil Society: Grantees of key donors, international civic organizations, CSO networks, development-oriented consulting and research firms, and regional support centers such as LAGs and service organizations.

• Public Sector: Local self-government administrations, public utility companies, and national public institutions.

• Private Sector: Chambers of Commerce, business associations and clusters, and agriculture associations.

• Media: Media associations and key independent media outlets.

• Education Sector: Universities and higher education, and vocational training and career centers.

• Political Parties: Ultimately not included, per direction of USAID.

• Religious & Faith-Based Groups: Not included, per direction of USAID.

• Diaspora: Primary Macedonian diaspora organization, MK-2025; included, but didn’t complete survey.

Specific actors from each of these groups included in the final roster were identified and finalized according to the procedures outlined in the Methodology section of this report. Ultimately, 197 development-oriented actors plus 33 municipalities and the City of Skopje were selected for participation in the analysis; of these, 139 organizations and 25 local administrations participated in the respective surveys.

Sub-Network Analyses

Through meetings between the USAID Local Works team and LINC in February 2018 at the start of this assignment, we discussed a number of possible sub-networks to explore. In total, this report assesses sub-networks and analyses along the following lines:

USAID Local Systems Practice 4 June 2018

• Primary Sectoral Focus: Examines sub-networks based on seven development sectors that consolidate 18 sectors established by the Governmental Unit for Cooperation with CSOs and their CSO partners.

• Geography: Examines sub-networks that operate on national versus regional and local levels, as well as separate sub-networks for regional actors according to the eight administrative regions in Macedonia.

• Local Administration Development Relationships: Examines relationships between public administrations and development actors from the perspective of the local administrations and indicating with whom they most commonly cooperate; derived from a survey administered to the 33 largest municipalities in Macedonia plus the City of Skopje.

• Grantor-Grantee Relationship: Illustrates grantor-grantee relationships of four key grant-making organizations in Macedonia: USAID CEP, FOSM, MCIC and the EU Competitiveness project. This analysis illustrates a useful application of how network analysis can be used to describe and document financial linkages between donors, their grantees, and sub-grantees and project partners.

Methodology

Solicit Local Partner

In February 2018, LINC personnel Jenna White and Craig Hempfling traveled to Macedonia to meet with the USAID Local Works team and to conduct a Research Mission to assess potential local partners and their capacity to assist in the network analysis. During their two-week stay, they met with 23 Macedonian organizations recommended by USAID or through LINC’s network. Summary reports of each organization were prepared, including their organizational background, missions, project portfolio and history, staffing, and assessment of their capacity to support the network analysis. Based on the visits and information gathered, each organization was evaluated in six technical areas: i) Technical Expertise; ii) Content Expertise; iii) Experience; iv) Bench Strength; v) Ethnic Group Representation; and vi) Motivation.

In April, LINC released an Annual Program Statement (APS) to solicit offers from Macedonian organizations to support the network analysis. All the organizations visited during the Research Mission were invited to submit an offer, four of which responded. Two of the four were granted interviews, after which MCIC was selected.

MCIC is the second-largest (by revenue) civil society organization in Macedonia, surpassed only by Foundation Open Society Macedonia (FOSM). Established in 1993 (the same year as FOSM), they have implemented or supported 1700 civil society projects under 70 programs, valued at €60 million. Since 2014, MCIC has managed the CHF 8-million, Swiss-funded Civica Mobilitas program, under which they manage a network of more than 200 CSOs, supporting them with organizational capacity building and four grant schemes: i) Institutional Grants, the largest of the schemes and granted to individual CSOs; ii) Action Grants, granted primarily to consortia of typically 2-3 CSOs, media and/or universities; iii) Small Action Grants, supporting smaller, community-based initiatives; and iv) Ad-Hoc Grants, supporting small initiatives and available to informal groups. MCIC also manages the most comprehensive, publicly-available database of Macedonian CSOs, which was instrumental in compiling the network analysis roster and organization contact information. MCIC is also the implementer of the EU-funded Technical Assistance to CSOs (TACSO) program, which supports ten national CSO networks with capacity building; provides mentoring services; and maintains a CSO resource center in Skopje.

Compile Database of Development Actors

Concurrently with soliciting and selecting the local partner, LINC began compiling the roster of organizations to be included in the network analysis. To do this, LINC consolidated several lists of actors from either publicly-available or solicited sources, including:

• USAID Local Works: The USAID Local Works team provided a list of preferred actors to include in the analysis; the list consisted of 132 organizations and key individuals, plus the 33 largest municipalities (those with “cities” designated as the urban seat), seven of which constitute the greater-Skopje area.

USAID Local Systems Practice 5 June 2018

• MCIC Database & Grantees: All 459 organizations included in MCIC’s database, plus designations for grantees of the Civica Mobilitas grant schemes: Institutional Grants (48), Action Grants (15), Small Action Grants (17).

• FOSM Grantees: FOSM provided a list of their organizational and individual grantees under all programs from 2015 through present, plus several prominent CSOs that were grantees prior to 2015; in total, their list included 130 organizations plus 10 public institutions, three of which were municipal administrations.

• USAIC Civic Engagement Project (CEP): All CEP partners (4) and organizational grantees (30) to date under the program grant schemes: i) Partnership Grants; ii) Strategic Support Grants; iii) Youth Engagement Support Grants; and iv) Rapid Response Grants. Grants to individuals under the LEAD Fellows and Youth Civic Engagement Award were not included.

• EU Grant Schemes: We attempted to include EU Civil Society Facility grantees; however, there appears to be only one publicly-available list of EU grantees – those under the Competitiveness grant scheme – which included ten consortia with 21 total organizations. Despite multiple requests and an in-person meeting with the EU Civil Society Advisor, grantees of their Civil Society Facility programs were not provided and are therefore not included (in any case, we would expect these to largely be duplicates from one or more of our other source lists).

• Research Mission Organizations: All the organizations personally visited during the February 2018 Research Mission were included.

All available data from each of these resources was entered in Excel, including organization name, municipality, all contact information including office address and multiple emails and phone numbers, and identifiers for each grant scheme. From a total of 922 actors, we identified duplicates, consolidated available data, and ensured that multiple grants to single organizations were identifiable. Once consolidated, the database included 650 entries, summarized by type of organization in the table to the right.

Looking at the table, the figure of 588 CSOs and private development-oriented firms is generally consistent with other sources: under Civica Mobilitas, MCIC had 950 unique applicants, some of which were ad-hoc groups and fledgling CSOs that never attracted donations more than €1500.

USAID’s CEP management puts the number of “active” CSOs at roughly 600; to date, they have received applications from 220. Other sources quoted during LINC’s February research mission generally correspond to this figure, ranging from 200-300 “serious” CSOs to 500-600 considered “active.”

Recommendation: This ONA effort and the resulting database is likely one of the most comprehensive databases developed on Macedonian civil society and development; it is the only one known that combines grantor-grantee relationships from the main civil society donors in Macedonia, EU and smaller bilateral donors notwithstanding.

With nominal effort or resources, Local Works could continue to update this resource, potentially combining it with the publicly-available Civica Mobilitas database, to track the growth and development of individual CSOs and development actors that might be directly or peripherally engaged through Local Works.

ONA “Hybrid” Methodology

Based on the Research Plan submitted in March 2018, our network methodology consisted of a “hybrid” approach that lies between two common methods of “snowball” and “roster.” The snowball method usually involves an open-response survey whereby the respondent is asked to name all organizations with whom they have relationships, which are then subsequently surveyed, continuing in this manner until no new organizations are identified; it is typically used when network actors are unknown. The roster method provides respondents with a pre-populated list of actors from which to select, with no new nominations allowed. For this exercise, since the

Database of Development Actors Consolidated List from Available Resources

Actor Type Number

CSOs & Development Firms & Agencies

Municipalities, plus Skopje City

Chambers of Commerce

Individuals

Local Action Groups (LAGs)

University Faculty

TOTAL 650

USAID Local Systems Practice 6 June 2018 actors were predominantly known from our database, the approach primarily utilized the roster methodology, while also allowing respondents to enter a limited number of other actors.

Conduct Opt-In Survey & Finalize Roster

Our initial aim was to provide respondents with a roster of roughly 150 organizations, as LINC has learned that larger lists can introduce “respondent fatigue” in reviewing an extensive list of actors. To both limit the roster size and to maximize the response rate, we conducted an initial “Opt-In Survey” sent to all documented email addresses of organizations in the database (local administrations excluded) asking them three questions: i) the official name of their organization for the purposes of survey accuracy; ii) whether the organization is currently active; and iii) whether they wished to be included in the analysis. Ultimately, 175 organizations opted in.

In cooperation with MCIC, we then conducted a final review of the full database to identify additional organizations considered as serious actors in the development community, ultimately including an additional 37 actors, bringing the roster total to 212. In collaboration with MCIC, we narrowed the final roster to 197 actors based on criteria that included the number and type of grants, existence of an organizational website and regional representation, as the SurveyMonkey tool only allowed a maximum of 200.

Administer Network Analysis Survey

The ONA survey was prepared and conducted in SurveyMonkey, questioning respondents in the areas below.

(See Annex 1 for full survey.) Of the 197 organizations who were sent the survey, 139 responded.

• Legal Form of Organization

• Primary Sectoral Focus

• Primary Services & Functions

• Funding Sources

• Number of Employees

• Operational Level (National, Regional, Local) and Geographic Presence

• Network Connections with Other Organizations, including Formal/Informal and Perceived Strength (maximum of 20).

Limiting the number of network connections to a defined maximum – in our case twenty – is a common technique to ensure that results are not skewed by individual actors citing connections with too-many other actors and helps ensure the integrity of the metrics. In addition to the maximum of 20, respondents were also able to write in other organizations not appearing in the roster.

The online SurveyMonkey survey, released in both English and Macedonian options, was disseminated via LINC’s account on May 28, 2018, sent to the confirmed emails from the Opt-In Survey, plus organizational emails on file for the additional 37 serious actors identified by MCIC. Reminder emails were sent on June 1 and June 6, establishing a final deadline of June 8; however, by that time there were still only 93 responses. MCIC staff then followed up via phone to all organizations that had not yet responded, followed by another email reminder with the survey link; the deadline was extended to June 14, at which time we had collected 139 responses.

Some organizations reported a few challenges in completing the survey; these included: i) organizations with significantly more than 20 linkages had difficulty limiting their responses to 20, feeling that they were thus limiting important data; ii) distinguishing between formal and informal relationships, particularly when they may have multiple types of relationships with the same actor; iii) some collaborators were not included in the roster.

USAID Local Systems Practice 7 June 2018

Analyze Network Data

After closing the survey, all data was exported from SurveyMonkey to Excel and transformed to the necessary format for uploading into Kumu (Kumu.io), a web-based network visualization and analysis platform used to map systems and better understand relationships. It is important to note that non-respondent organizations are not included in the ONA maps and analysis, since in those cases we could not capture and report all the relevant organizational data and metrics. We have, however, included in our analysis a list of those organizations that were frequently cited, but excluded from the analysis since they did not themselves respond to the survey.

The full Kumu data set, along with SurveyMonkey and Excel files, have been transferred to MCIC. Access to Kumu has been provided to USAID so that they can further analyze, present and share the results with others and update the map going forward; the final roster with organization names and codes necessary to identify network actors in Kumu is provided in Annex 2. The Excel database can be provided to USAID/Macedonia on request.

Administer Municipality Survey

In addition to the main ONA survey, we administered a separate survey to gather additional data from the perspective of local administrations, asking them to write-in up to 10 organizations with which they most frequently work on development initiatives. The survey was administered to the 33 municipalities with “cities” as the seat (the largest of the 80 Macedonian municipalities), plus the City of Skopje. Since we sought to target all these public administrations, there was no Opt-In Survey. Of the 34 targeted administrations, 26 ultimately replied following MCIC reminders via telephone and email and extending the deadline until June 21. A network map of those municipalities and their cited connections is included in this report.

Findings & Analysis

Respondent Profiles

Prior to proceeding to the network analysis, we first present a brief overview of the respondent organizations that participated in the ONA.

ONA Respondent Profiles

Type of Organization

This table presents the distribution of respondents by legal form of registration. As seen in the table, the majority (82%) are registered as Citizen Associations (CSOs).

Type of Organization Organization Registration Organizations

CSO/Association 118

Foundation 14

Private Firm, Agency, Ltd. 2

Public Institution 1

Publicly-Held Development Entity 1

Chamber of Commerce 3

Trade Union 0

Total 139

Number of Full-Time Employees

This table presents the distribution of respondents by their number of full-time employees.

Organization Employees Number of Employees Organizations

0 41

1-5 65

6-10 18

11-20 7

21-50 7

51+ 1

Total 139

USAID Local Systems Practice 8 June 2018

Services & Functions Performed

This chart presents the distribution of respondents by the primary services and functions performed by the organization.

As respondents could choose from more than one category, the services reported are greater than the number of respondents.

Sources of Funding

This chart presents from where organizations indicated that they received their funding since January 1, 2017.

Organizations were instructed to select all applicable responses, so again, the number of responses exceeds the number of respondents.

Network Analysis

This section of the report presents the findings and analysis of the ONA portion of the analysis. First, we will examine the overall network of all development actors who participated in the survey, then we will examine them according to their primary sector, then by the geographies they serve. Following that, we will examine the relationships between local administrations and development actors, and finally present the results of our research on grantor-grantee relationships.

Prior to beginning our analysis, it is important for the reader to become familiar with a few ONA terms that are used throughout the analysis.

• Degree: Number of connections an actor has; actors with high degrees are considered as network connector hubs. An actor’s degree (sometimes referred to as ‘Average Degree’) is the combined value of In-Degrees, which represent the number of linkages into a network actor (named by another actor) and Out-Degrees, which represent the number of linkages leaving a network actor (others named by the actor). In a directed network diagram, arrows indicate the direction of the relationship.

• Density: The fraction of all potential connections in a network to actual connections; a network where each actor is directly connected to every other actor has a density of 100%.

• Closeness Centrality: The shortest distance of each actor to all other actors; actors with high closeness can spread information most easily to the rest of the network.

• Betweenness Centrality: The number of times an actor lies on the shortest path between two other actors;

elements with high betweenness have more control over the flow of information and act as key bridges within the network.

• Eigenvector Centrality: Describes how well an actor is connected to other well-connected actors. This metric, though not reported in this analysis, is available by accessing the network data on Kumu, the online platform used for our analysis.

To aid the reader, we have followed a systematic framework for presenting network and sub-network analyses.

For each, we provide a visual “sociogram,” or map of the network actors and their relationships, along with key

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Other

Volunteering

Consulting

Material support

Technical

Capacity

Advocacy

Research

Primary services/functions of CSOs

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

None

Economic Activities and Services

Membership

Individual donations

Private sector

Local Gov.

National Gov.

International donors

Source of funding

USAID Local Systems Practice 9 June 2018 network-level metrics and a list of the top ten organizations, ranked by In-Degree, Closeness and Betweenness.

In all the network maps presented in this report, the size of each actor in the maps is based on In-Degree (number of instances named by other entities).

How to Read This Report – Interpreting Network Maps

Network maps displayed in this report show “nodes” – the circles in the map, which each represent an organization

– and “edges – the lines in the map that represent a connection between two actors. The size of each node is based on the total number of connections (both out-ties, or connections named by the actor, and in-ties, or connections where the actor was named by another network actor). The maps are automatically generated by the online systems mapping platform (Kumu.io) using a standard layout algorithm. The position of nodes in a given map varies depending on the purpose of the visualization and generally does not reflect distance of specific actors or groups from each other. Ungrouped maps tend to position the largest nodes (those with the highest number of connections) at or near the center, while those with the fewest connections tend to be at the periphery.

We do not suggest utilizing maps alone for interpretive purposes, especially those that are the large and complex.

We suggest referencing the metrics provided together with the maps in the presentation when conducting in-depth analysis on specific actors. We have also included links below each map, so the reader can view and navigate the full-sized maps on Kumu.

Overall Network Analysis

The map and analysis below present the results of the overall network analysis, including all 139 organizations that participated in the survey. The map and metrics depicted represent the overall network of actors, color-coded according to their primary sector of activity; each of the sectors is then subsequently examined in more detail. The overall network map below can be used as a rough basis for comparison when examining the connectedness of various other sub-networks. Note that for each network map, the reader can easily view and filter the full map by clicking on the link below and selecting the sectors or geographic focus indicated using filters that will appear at the top of the map (sectors in the center dropdown and geography and services/functions in the top left corner).

Overall Network

Sectors: All Sectors

Network Metrics: Actors: 139 Connections: 957 Density: 5% Avg. Degree1: 13.77 https://embed.Kumu.io/df9d43bc581a211ac3e796edcde5dd00

Top 10 Prominent Actors Rank In-Degree Closeness Betweenness

1 FOSM VIP-Kultura Konekt

2 Konekt Kham Kumanovo ADI

3 MCIC Drom Roma Ctr. FOSM

4 HERA Assn.

Aid Handicapped & Poor

Ctr. Intercult.

Dialogue

5 ADI Women of Skopje Drom Roma Ctr.

6 USAID CEP Focus Found. USAID CEP

7 Metamorphosis USAID CEP Ajde Macedonia

Helsinki Committee

Justicia Kumanovo MCIC

Nat. Youth Council MK

Ajde Macedonia Metamorphosis

Ctr. Intercult.

Dialogue

Ctr. Intercult.

Dialogue

Kham Kumanovo

1 Average Degree here – and in subsequent network snapshot tables – is calculated as the average of all degree values (combined in-degree and out-degree) of the organizations in the respective network or sub-network.

USAID Local Systems Practice 10 June 2018

As seen in the diagram and metric data, there are 139 organizational entities connected by 957 linkages. (Network-level metrics are summarized in the upper right cell of the table.) The Density indicates that 5% of all possible connections have indicated a relationship. On average, respondents selected 9.5 organizations with whom they have linkages. The average degree of all respondents, or the number of in- and out-linkages each possesses is 13.8.

It is worth noting that this map is influenced by the fact that the survey limited respondents to no more than 20 relational responses; thus, organizations like FOSM and MCIC with hundreds of grantees did not reflect all their relationships.

In the table to the right of the diagram, we have indicated the top-ten most prominent actors, as measured by In- Degree (the number of times they were cited by other respondents); Closeness (organizations with the shortest distance, or number of steps, to all other organizations, indicating their ability to spread information most easily within the network); and Betweenness (organizations who most often appear on the shortest path between two other organizations, reflecting their ability to serve as key bridges in the network).

Organizations whose primary sector is Civil Society Development generally hold the network together and serve as its main actors. Among the top-three most commonly cited are FOSM, Konekt and MCIC, all organizations that are generally recognized as civil society leaders through their grant programs and other activities.

Sector-Based Sub-Networks & Analysis

This section of the report presents the results of the ONA broken down into sub-networks by priority focus area of the respondents. In the survey, we used the 18 official designations agreed upon between the “Governmental Unit for Cooperation with CSOs” and the CSOs represented in their council. The table below presents the number of respondents by their self-ascribed primary sector designations.

For the purposes of our analysis, we have combined similar sectors as shown in the first column of the table, which has proven more insightful into analyzing actor relationships, particularly since some sectors have low representation (for instance, no respondents indicated “Sport, Hobby & Recreation” or “Policy & EU Integration”). In each of the graphs we have retained the original respondents’ primary sector designations, using the same color scheme throughout this report.

In each of the sub-network analyses, we have included the Civil Society Development actors, as this sector intersects and supports all the other sectors; the sector includes the main civil society grantors in Macedonia – FOSM, USAID CEP2 and MCIC – which support all sectors with grants and technical assistance. By including Civil Society Development in all sub-sector analyses, the reader can see how these actors hold the network together, making it more cohesive.

2 Although CEP is a USAID Project and not a singular organization, it acts as an important grantee in the sector and thus was included as a separate entity. All CEP implementing partners were also included on the final roster of 197 organizations.

Primary Sector Focus Combined Sectors

For ONA Primary Sector Number (%)

Civil Society (overlap all) Civil Society Development 17 (12%)

Economic, Agriculture, Sustainable Development, Professional Associations

Economic & Sustainable Development 21 (15%)

Agriculture & Rural Development 7 (5%)

Professional Associations 3 (2%)

Democracy & Rule of Law Democracy & Rule of Law 22 (16%)

Policy & EU Integration 0 (0%)

Humanities & Rights

Human Rights & Non-Discrimination 15 (18%)

Protection of Marginalized People 7 (5%)

Social & Child Protection 5 (4%)

Gender Equality 3 (2%)

Non-Violence & Tolerance 1 (1%)

Youth, Culture & Education

Youth 12 (9%)

Culture 4 (3%)

Science, Education & Lifelong Learning 7 (5%)

Environment & Health

Environmental Protection 8 (6%)

Health Protection 4 (3%)

Sport, Hobby & Recreation 0 (0%)

Media & It Media & IT 3 (2%)

Total: 139

USAID Local Systems Practice 11 June 2018

It is worth pointing out that all sectoral sub-networks are based on the primary sector designated by the organizations themselves; in some cases, organizations’ work spans different areas and may therefore fall outside of the sector one might expect. As a notable example, there are at least eight Roma organizations, but several did not indicate “Protection of Marginalized People” as their primary sector; for instance, Sumnal Roma Community Development Association, which works on education initiatives for Roma children, indicated as their primary sector, “Science, Education & Lifelong Learning.”

Metamorphosis, a USAID CEP partner and organization we will examine below, are prominent media leaders, but could also, with their sub-granting activities, arguably be placed in Civil Society Development. Other examples include the Journalists for Human Rights placing themselves in the primary sector of Environmental Protection.

In the sector-based network maps, the coloring scheme for each of the nodes is based on the organization type of the actor according to the colors shown to the right. All maps contain directionality (arrows), although this is generally difficult to see in highly populated maps.

Sector 1: Civil Society Development; Media & IT

Sectors: Civil Society Development (17) Media & IT (3)

Network Metrics: Actors: 20 Connections: 38 Density: 10% Avg. Degree: 3.8

Rank In-Degree Closeness Betweenness

1 FOSM Kham Kumanovo FOSM

2 MCIC Metamorphosis Metamorphosis

3 USAID CEP

Found. Local Comm. Dev.

Ctr. Sustain.

Comm. Dev.

4 Metamorphosis USAID CEP USAID CEP

Found. Local Comm. Dev.

Ctr. Sustain.

Comm. Dev.

MCIC

Comm. Ctr.

Strumica

Internet Hotline

MK

Team Institute

Ctr. Sustain.

Comm. Dev.

FOSM

Found. Local Comm. Dev.

8 BCSDN

Center Creative Int’l Dialogue

Civis Kumanovo

9 Civis Kumanovo MCIC Internet Hotline

MK

Union Pensioners

Center Econ.

Policy & Analysis

Balkan Instit.

Regional Coop.

The sub-network map on Civil Society Development and Media & IT is generally dominated by the main civil society grantors, FOSM, USAID CEP and MCIC. This network includes 48 actors connected by 156 reported linkages; the density of this sub-network is 7%, indicating that 7% of all possible connections have indicated an actual relationship. Only three entities indicated their primary sector of activity as “Media & IT,” although those include Metamorphosis, one of the four USAID CEP partner organizations which could also arguably be

ONA Sector Legend Code

USAID Local Systems Practice 12 June 2018 characterized under Civil Society Development, as they manage two CEP sub-granting components. Brief synopses of the key civil society grantors and sub-grantors are highlighted below:

• USAID CEP (Civic Engagement Program): USAID’s CEP program is a $9.5 million initiative, of which $3.9 million is dedicated to grant calls responding to priority areas and themes. Led by East-West Management Institute (EWMI), CEP has four local partners: i) FOSM, tasked with capacity building of grantees; ii) Metamorphosis, managing a two-part grant component for CSO alliances and for individual CSOs, in areas of larger institutional and action grants, plus short-term quick-response ad-hoc grants; iii) National Youth Council of Macedonia (NYCM), helping to develop future leaders through capacity building in leadership, public speaking and mobilization through in-kind grants, a week-long academy, and Youth Civic Engagement Award; and iv) Association for Democratic Initiatives (ADI) in Gostivar providing grants for youth organizations up to $15,000.

Recommendation: At the completion of CEP, EWMI plans to leave behind a legacy of all four partner organizations with the capacity and approved NICRA necessary allowing them to directly manage USAID funds, plus 50-60 grantees with significant management capacity developed via institutional and action grants. As Local

Works programming continues to take shape, CEP – as well as other USAID implementing partners – can provide valuable insight into potential priority areas, impactful interventions, and strategies that leverage the legacies and current efforts of other USAID programs.

• FOSM (Foundation Open Society Macedonia): FOSM, having recently celebrated its 25-year anniversary, is generally considered the largest civil society actor and donor in Macedonia. Having operated as both donor and implementer, they boast a unique and extensive perspective of civil society, local organizations and networks; they are known as a flexible and responsive donor. Regionally, they are involved throughout Macedonia and have supported a network of twelve regional CSO support centers, seven of which have sustained themselves absent direct support. FOSM works on a diverse range of issues, including central-level policy and reform, inclusion of marginalized groups, good governance, education, housing, media and health.

An area potentially of present interest to Local Works is their 2019-2022 strategy, for which they conducted a “Creative Activism” structured listening exercise in communities across Macedonia to reach out and assess priorities of local communities and civil society. http://www.fosm.mk/

• Metamorphosis: Founded in 2004 via FOSM, Metamorphosis focuses on electronic communications and hosts numerous professional websites in Macedonian, Albanian and English, producing original content and objective investigative journalism pieces. They are also the primary grant manager for USAID CEP. With an annual budget of roughly $500,000 they have a full-time staff of 28, roughly half of whom are journalists.

Their primary programmatic focuses are on human rights, good governance, social innovation and green IT.

Their numerous websites are worth a review: metamorphosis.org.mk; opennessindex.actionsee.org;

spinfo.org.mk; truthmeter.mk; meta.mk/en/; portal.mk; securityinabox.org/en.

• MCIC (Macedonian Center for International Cooperation): MCIC, the partner in this effort, is also celebrating their 25th anniversary this year. (See also profile in Methodology section of this report.) The Civica Mobilitas program managed by MCIC, soon to be renewed, will intensify efforts to help CSOs more effectively re-engage with citizens, and replace donor funds with local resources – objectives closely aligned with Local Works. MCIC is also likely to continue the EU-supported Technical Assistance to CSOs (TACSO) initiative, which provides support and mentoring services to local CSOs. In addition to being one of Macedonia’s main grantors, MCIC produces numerous survey and thematic research projects, including key contributions on the State of Civil Society report, the widely-recognized Fifteen Years of Transition report, and the quarterly Civic Pulse. http://www.mcms.org.mk/

USAID Local Systems Practice 13 June 2018

Recommendation: During the February 2018 Research Mission, LINC personnel met with all of these and other key civil society and development actors. Provided with a short briefing of Local Works, many of them were able to articulate ideas and supporting rationale on how USAID might effectively leverage local resources and generate locally-driven impact. Organizing a workshop – either limited to USAID and other international implementers, or open to key local actors – could be an effective means to learn from current and relevant experiences, identify synergies and gaps in programming, and develop concrete strategies and approaches. For instance, these actors might articulate ways to support community-level initiatives on a broad national scale. Of course, to avoid potential conflicts of interest, USAID’s procurement team should continue their active involvement in Local Works design.

Sector 2: Economic, Agriculture & Sustainable Development; Professional Associations

Sectors: Economic & Sustainable Development (21) Agriculture & Rural Development (7) Professional Associations (3) Civil Society Development (17)

Network Metrics: Actors: 48 Connections: 156 Density: 7% Avg. Degree: 6.5

1 FOSM VIP-Kultura Konekt

2 Konekt Konekt FOSM

3 MCIC LAG Pelagonia Finance Think

4 USAID CEP

Balkan Assn.

Alternat. Tourism

LAG Agro Lider Prilep

Found. Local Comm. Dev.

Alliance Microfin.

Orgs

LAG Pelagonia

Ctr. Econ.

Analysis

LAG Bojmija NW Chamber Commerce

7 Finance Think Focus Found. Focus Found.

MK Chamber Commerce

Finance Think MK Chamber Commerce

MK Journalist Assn.

Public Assn. MCIC

10 Albiz Found.

Rural Coalition Kumanovo

Albiz Found.

This network map and analysis presents the results for those organizations who indicated their primary sectors in one of three areas: i) Economic & Sustainable Development; ii) Agriculture & Rural Development; iii) Professional Associations; plus Civil Society Development, as noted previously; the sectors and the number of entities are indicated in the upper left. This network includes 48 actors connected by 156 linkages, and a density of 7%, indicating that 7% of all possible connections have indicated an actual relationship.

Interestingly, the most prominent entities in terms of the Closeness (shortest distance to all other entities in the network) and Betweenness (number of times the entity lies on the shortest path between every pair of entities) are actors from one of the non-Civil Society Development sectors. These metrics indicate actors with a significant role in how information is spread to the rest of the network and have more control over the flow of information.

The actors working in Agriculture & Rural Development have fewer connections compared to the other sectors in this map; however, they score high in Closeness and Betweenness. Notably, LAGs Pelagonia and Bojmija and the Balkan Association for Alternative Tourism score high in Closeness; and LAGs AgroLider Prilep and Pelagonia score high in Betweenness. From the Professional Associations, the Macedonian Chamber of Commerce and Macedonian Journalist Association have a larger number of connections, but low Closeness and Betweenness. (Only three participating entities selected Professional Association as their primary sector of activity.) Organizational highlights include:

USAID Local Systems Practice 14 June 2018

• Konekt: Konekt grew from a USAID civil society program and focuses on philanthropy and promotion of corporate social responsibility, encouraging citizens and business to invest in their communities and civil society. Their role is to provide a “brokerage” between a “triangle” of sectors: public, private and civil society. Looking at relationships between these three sectors, they note that linkages generally exist between public-private and public-civil society, but there is almost no private-civil society, so this is their primary emphasis.