A new forum established in Bitola Thirty civil society organizations united A new Civil Society Organizations Forum was established in Bitola on 9 July this year. It consists of thirty civil society organizations from the municipality and is the first and the only body established in the municipality on the initiative of the civil society organizations “Bitola”, the women association “Prestige” and the ecologists’ movement “Molika. The process of uniting means step forward towards strengthening the organizations’ capacities and their efficient, transparent and democratic mutual communication, that would be based on a signed paper for mutual cooperation. Even though there are over 450 registered associations in the municipality, only some of them are active and few of them have mutually coordinated activities; most of them repeat the programme activities. By signing and supporting the Memorandum for establishing the Forum, the local government, the institutions, consulates, private businesses and individuals have all become members of its counseling body. At the founding ceremony, 11 organizations were elected members of the Town Committee, among whom the Mayor of Bitola. The Executive Office of the Forum consists of organizations’ representatives who are going to build and coordinate the links between the associations and the local government, the business-sector and the media in the next two years, and are also going to get engaged in strengthening the CSO capacities, promoting working groups, promoting and protecting the rights and the interests of the members, cooperating with the institutions at all levels. The Forum is planning to prepare an action plan for 2007-2017 with a precise dynamics of performing the activities within. Among those who attended the founding ceremony was the EU Ambassador in Macedonia, Erwan Fouere, the president of Bitola municipality council, Ms Liljana Kuzmanovska, the consuls from the consulates in Bitola, business-sector, media and CSO representatives.   G.Sh.