MontenegrinCentre for Monitoring and Research
The Centre for Monitoring and Research – CeMI is a nongovernmental, non profitable organization, founded in March 2000, whose main goal is to provide infrastructural and expert support for continuous monitoring of the overall process of transition in Montenegro.
During its long and consistent work CeMI has contributed to changing social and political circumstances in which it was created, and consequently expanded the scope of its work towards legislative initiatives, public opinion polls, fight against corruption and respect of human rights and freedoms.
Amendment of the constitutional status and progress in the European integration process have positively impact the development of civil society in Montenegro, giving it an entirely new framework of the work. In that context, CeMI deviates from the work of regular non-governmental organization and is getting closer to the concept of a research center for the creation and representation of policy proposals.
CEMI, with the support by the OSI Think Tank Fund, Budapest, CeMI has restructured an internal organization in order to achieve optimal capacity utilization. Also the mission and vision of CeMI have changed in line with the newly established objectives.
From five programs that CeMI had in the past (Elections, Rule of Law, Good governance, Civil society and European integrations), CeMI has passed on to three clearly defined programs: (1) Democratization and Human Rights, (2) Fight against corruption, (3) Euro-Atlantic Integrations. In this way, CeMI will limit its work on the areas where has a significant experience and within which the actions of our organizations are recognized. Each program has a coordinator who manages all projects and assigns responsibilities. In this way, the professional stuff of CeMI has an opportunity to specialize in one of the three areas, and at the same time to provide support on the projects within other programs – which contributes to maximizing efficiency and expertise at the same time.
Vision
Montenegro as a country of free citizens, social justice, rule of law and equal opportunities.
Mission
CEMI is a Think Tank organization whose mission is to continuously provide support to reforms and strengthening of the institutions of the political system and civil society organizations through proposing and monitoring the implementation of public policies in the field of human rights and freedoms of European integration and fight against corruption in Montenegro.
Goals
- Contribution to the effective implementation of public policies and international commitments in the areas of human rights and freedoms of European integration and fight against corruption;
- Contribution to harmonization of national legislation and institutional framework with the requirements of the EU accession process;
- To improve awareness and educate public about human rights protection and freedoms, European integration and fight against corruption;
- Contribution to improving the efficiency of the work of institutions involved in the protection of human rights and freedoms, European integration and fight against corruption;
- Increasing the transparency of the institutions of political system and civil society organizations.
Users of CeMI are: citizenzs, civil society organizations, media, local governments, public administration and enterprises.
Team
Zlatko Vujović, PhD
President of the Governing Board
zlatko.vujovic@cemi.org.me
Biography
Teodora Gilić
Head of Finance and PR Department
teodora.gilic@cemi.org.me
Biography
Nina Kecojević, MSc
Project coordinator
nina.kecojevic@cemi.org.me
Biography
Ivan Vukčević, MSc
Project coordinator
ivan.vukcevic@cemi.org.me
Biography
Dubravka Tomić
Project assistant
dubravka.tomic@cemi.org.me
Biography
Miljana Rakočević
Project assistant
miljana.rakocevic@cemi.org.me
Biography
Vladimir Simonović
Project assistant
vlado.cemi@gmail.com
Biography
Governing Board
Zlatko Vujovic, President, Djuro Stojanovic, Ana Selic and Vladan Radunovic
Research Board
Drago Kos, President – Commissioner in the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee in Afghanistan and Head of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, Marijana Trivunovic – Independent Public Policy Professional i Drino Galičić – Legal Adviser, Rule of Law Section at EU Delegation and EU Special Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina .
Departments
Public policy research
Department in charge of the development of public policies was formed from Policy Research Unit, which was the core formed within the project dealing with strengthening capacity for evidence based advocacy. Advocacy activities have so far been carried out by the Legal Department, until the formation of Policy Research Unit took place, which has since then become the bearer of these activities. Key activities of this department are reflected in the monitoring of government public policy implementation in specific sectors, while on the other hand it implements comparative study of politics, with the aim to prepare public policy papers and represent acceptance of proposed solutions from national and local authorities in Montenegro.
Legal department
The legal department was key factor to development of Centre for Monitoring and Research, especially when it comes to legislative initiatives, monitoring and control of the regularity of the elections process. The pillar of the Legal Department was project “Trial Monitoring”, which has been implemented from 2007-2014 in partnership with OSCE Mission to Montenegro. The department is included in realization of most of the projects in Centre for Monitoring and Research, but it lays its focus on realization of the project “Monitoring of the judicial Reform”, implemented together with Human Rights Action (HRA). The department has broad range of expertise in the field of criminal civil, constitutional and administrative law.
Public opinion survey
In 2001, CeMI began developing Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI), and in time this segment was developed by introducing the use of qualitative methods such as group focus or depth interviews. In addition to these methods, CeMI initiated the implementation of field studies using face-to-face method. This department is the bearer of the most important segment of the work of our organization – monitoring the election process or its parts related to the counting of votes. Further, the department conducts a parallel vote count method (PVT), as well as engages in making projections based on the sample (PPVT). Thanks to the application of this methodology, election results were made available to Montenegrin and international public, that is their precise projection ranging from 30 to 120 minutes, based on the complexity of the process itself (number of elections held at parallel time intervals, the number of candidates or lists, the quality of electoral committee…) High accuracy in making projections served as a good basis for further development of this department. Public opinion polls serve as a source of additional resources; namely, CeMI as a nongovernmental organization has registered economic activity, which enables the implementation of commercial activities for different customers. This department is the backbone of the financial sustainability of our organization. In addition to research for its own needs, CeMI has so far conducted commercial public opinion surveys for legal entities.
Public relation department
CeMI has developed a complex system of public relations. Among its many activities, this department’s special role is in informing the public about complex and demanding projects, such as monitoring the elections. On the election day, CEMI’s website is visited by tens of thousands of visitors. The size of this team varies depending on the requirements of the projects being implemented. The emphasis in the current work of this department is to simplify access to the information available to our organization, primarily through simpler access to our web-site and improving the channels of communication. The new organization’s web-site represents just one of the efforts to achieve such goal.
