On February 17th, the World Bank Group held a public consultation on its Slovakia Country Assistance Strategy (CAS). The meeting was attended by sixty representatives from NGOs.
NGO representatives expressed concern over the process guiding the consultation preparation and implementation. They cited a lack of access to timely information and a generally closed and untransparent process. Juraj Zamkovsky, director of Friends of the Earth Slovakia, commented after the meeting that,
“the invitation and informal note, which served as the basis for the consultation, was distributed only a few days in advance of the meeting. Also, it was only during this meeting that we learned that there are only two public consultations currently scheduled prior to the CAS being finalized in early April. This is an unacceptable approach reducing the public participation to a limited opportunity for civil society to express its opinions.”
Contact: Friends of the Earth Slovakia, Tel/fax: +421 88 419 3324, hunter@changenet.sk .
