The Western Balkans Organized Crime Radar (WB-OCR) is an initiative of the Balkan Security Platform (BSP). BSP is a network of civil society organizations (CSOs) from the WB6 (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia)
The Western Balkans Organized Crime Radar (WB-OCR) is an initiative of the Balkan Security Platform (BSP). BSP is a network of civil society organizations (CSOs) from the WB6 (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia) specialized in security issues, which work together towards construction of peaceful and democratic environment in the WB6 and Europe by greater involvement of civil society and citizens in developing and influencing security policies.
The Balkan Security Platform consists of: Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM) - Albania, Centre for Security Studies (CSS) – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS) - Kosova, Institute Alternative (IA) - Montenegro, Eurothink – Centre for European Strategies – North Macedonia, and Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP) - Serbia.
The Western Balkans Organized Crime Radar (WB-OCR) is part of a broader BSP’s action within the first strategic direction of the Network that intends to bridge the gap between the commitments made by the WB6 governments to tackle organized crime (OC) and the lackluster performance of their policies on the ground. The BSP’s idea is to streamline and foster civil society and activist’s engagement into more coherent advocacy efforts at the national and regional levels.
WB-OCR seeks to strengthen civil societies role in fighting OC in WB6 in order to contribute to the development of effective and long-term policies against OC in the context of EU accession (Chapter 24: Freedom, Security, and Justice). It comes as a response to the incomplete and ad hoc debate about OC missing credible policy proposals and alternatives due to lack of regular independent in-depth analysis and assessments exposing the reasons for governments’ ineffectiveness in combating OC. Although EU and intergovernmental agencies reiterate the need for impartial and locally relevant inputs, the CSOs in the WB6 still do not recognize this opportunity nor possess the capacities to effectively engage.
BSP will provide evidence-based advocacy for fighting OC through networking regionally and nationally relevant actors (CSOs, media, academia, and think-tanks). The proposed project generates bottom-up demand for greater performance of the WB6 governments in fighting OC through gathering scattered anti-OC civil society initiatives within the WB6 and streamlining them into more coherent advocacy efforts backed with rigorous evidence at the national and regional level; whereas top-down accountability demand is generated through collaborating with the Integrated Internal Security Governance (IISG), an inter-governmental initiative gathering high-level representatives of both EU institutions and WB6 governments.
