The project aims at increasing Western Balkans (WB) civil society impact on anti-corruption policies and practices during the public procurement (PP) cycle by utilizing the EU integration as a transformative agenda. There are four major target groups addressed by the action in order to achieve set goals in all participating countries: 1) civil society organizations, media and journalists; 2) national governments and public bodies; 3) business sector; 4) the EU institutions participating in the enlargement process.

“Integrity and anti-corruption in business sector” is an action that will strengthen civil society’s impact on decreasing corruption in the business sector by improving transparency, accountability and integrity of state-owned enterprises and increasing private sector’s participation in the fight against corruption.

The overall objective of the action is to strengthen impact of civil society’s monitoring of public spending towards attainment of transparent and effective public procurements according to citizens’ needs. The action anticipates capacity building for grass-root CSOs across the country and their active involvement in monitoring of public procurements and initiation of dialogue with public institutions aimed at improving state-of-affairs in this field.

The specific objectives are: (1) active participation of CSOs in improving the legislation and introducing best practices in public procurements towards reduced corruption and enhanced effectiveness in public spending; (2) heightened understanding among stakeholders and the general public at national and local level about the need for greater transparency, accountability and integrity in public spending.

The action will create a core of well skilled investigative journalists, as well as a network of grass - root effective CSOs from all over the country which should contribute towards improved investigative journalism both through their work and through the cooperation with journalists.

It is expected the action to result in: increased quality and credibility of investigative journalism by improving journalists’ skills, capacities, tools and information for in-depth and fact-based reports; built operational and efficient partnerships between CSOs and the media to provide greater availability of information based on thorough and replicable investigative journalism; CSO’s introduced open data bases to fortify their activities and create resource for investigative journalism and their own further actions and public provided with better and more substantial information to make informed decisions.