Presentation of the Local Self-Government Transparency Index - LTI 2024 - The Most Transparent Municipalities and Cities in Serbia
The Embassy of Switzerland in Belgrade - Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and Transparency Serbia will present on October 24, 2024 the results of the LTI 2024. TS assessed and ranked the transparency of all 145 municipalities and cities in Serbia based on 95 indicators,.
The presentation of the results of LTI 2024 will be held on October 24 at the Media Center (Terazije 3, hall on the first floor) starting at 11 am.
The presentation will be attended by the Head of Development and Cooperation of the Embassy of Switzerland, Richard Cole, the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Milan Marinović, the mayors/presidents of the municipalities that are the best ranked this year, the Program Director of Transparency Serbia, Nemanja Nenadić, and the Research Coordinator, Zlatko Minić.
Agenda:
11:00 - 11:05 Introductory Remarks - Program Director of Transparency Serbia, Nemanja Nenadić
11:05 - 11:10 Message of support for the LTI 2024 research - Head of Development and Cooperation of the Embassy of Switzerland, Richard Cole
11:10 - 11:15 Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection, Milan Marinović
11:15 – 11:30 Presentation of LTI 2024 results – Research Coordinator, Zlatko Minić
11:30 – 11:45 Addresses by the Presidents/Mayors of the three best-ranked municipalities/cities
11:45 – 12:00 Discussion, Questions & Answers
Simultaneous translation to and from English language is provided.
Some additional information and methodological notes
The Local Self-Government Transparency Index LTI 2024 is a survey, evaluation and ranking of 145 local self-government units and 25 in-city municipalities in Serbia, conducted by Transparency Serbia. This is the eighth time that TS has conducted this research. According to the TS methodology, the Transparency Index is calculated as the sum of the scores evaluating answers to indicator questions, and ranges from 0 to 100. This year, as in 2023, 95 indicators (indicator questions) were used. A negative answer is valued as 0 points, and a positive answer is valued as 1 or 2. More specifically, the questions related to the five most important transparency indicators ("core indicators") are valued as 2 points for a positive answer and 0 for a negative answer, while the remaining 90 questions are valued as 1 or 0 points.
Answers to indicator questions were collected through browsing the official websites of cities, municipalities and in-city municipalities. Additionally, another method was used - direct insight, by visiting all service centers and local self-government premises. The third group of sources were responses from local self-government units to requests for access to information of public importance. The fourth group of sources is data obtained from other relevant authorities (Commissioner for Information of Public Importance, Agency for Prevention of Corruption).
All 145 cities and municipalities were ranked in one list, while 25 in-city municipalities were rated but not ranked, as they do not have the same competencies as municipalities.
The final result on transparency level corresponds to the period of finalizing the verification of the results. The current transparency of local self-government units, i.e. the website presentation and in their premises, may differ at the time of presentation of this report.
It is important to emphasize that poor performance in some categories does not necessarily mean that corruption is widespread in these areas. Similarly, good results do not guarantee that there is no corruption. Transparency is only a mechanism to facilitate the detection or prevention of corruption; The ultimate success of these mechanisms also depends on many other factors. Also, a low LTI score does not necessarily mean that a municipality is more corrupt than another that has a higher LTI, and vice versa. The fact is that a low LTI should "alarm the public", as well as local self-government and its management, while a high LTI means that corrupt behavior will be more difficult to conceal, i.e. it will be easier to detect.
