First Forum session

Due to the sudden expansion of the COVID-19 pandemic and the large number of newly infected people in the Eastern planning region, a decision was made to implement the first forum session by conducting an electronic questionnaire in the period 04-09.11.2020.

As a first step, a list of potential participants who can contribute to the determination of the region’s priorities was drawn up, and then an invitation was drawn up in which the entire forum process and its goals and results were explained. It was emphasized to the respondents that priority areas and sub-areas should be selected from the EPR Development Program and problems in the region should be identified for which an external expert will prepare appropriate concept solutions, and the EPR Development Council will give an assessment and guidelines for their improvement or eventual elimination.

The questionnaire was sent to 110 citizens by e-mail, while care was taken to respect the rules for the implementation of the forum, above all the total number of participants per municipality, as well as that women were represented by at least 40% in the examination and at least 20% of the citizens involved are young.
The analysis of the received answers showed that a total of 79 people or 72% answered it, where 41.80% of the people who answered the questionnaire were women, and 52.80% were men.

Taking into account the rules for the realization of the regional forums, a selection was made of two areas and two sub-areas from each of them, in which the citizens consider that the development of the region should be focused in 2021:

1. Modern and quality education, health and social activities in the region
   1. Better social inclusion of all vulnerable population categories
   2. Improvement of conditions in health facilities in the region
2. Economically developed region, widely recognized as attractive for investment
   1. Utilization of available resources and competitive advantages to attract investors to the region
   2. Development of entrepreneurship and small business in the region

Minutes of the First Forum Session