CEVES’s mission: the development of socio-economic and democratic initiatives and projects that gather stakeholders and show how, together, they can use European values, economic logic, market forces and funding (donor’s, their own, or government support) to advance their interests and accelerate Serbia’s economic growth and decent job generation.
CEVES subscribes to the received wisdom that to accomplish sustained growth Serbia needs to increase its exports and investment. Thus, for CEVES, “good policies” are:
- Evidence-based,
- Emphasize growth of a certain quality, spreading the benefits to a broad swathe of the population,
- Inclusive, by generating decent jobs & entrepreneurship, and
- Environmentally sustainable, by promoting sustainable energy solutions and mainstreaming a responsible behavior towards all use of natural resources.
However, CEVES believes that mainstream recommendations need to be adapted more boldly to Serbia’s needs, by:
- Confronting more decisively the political, economic and institutional blockages,
- Better adapt reforms to Serbia’s society,
- While foreign capital is necessary, it is important to increase the society’s focus on recognizing and nurturing domestic processes & organizations that show resilience and growth potential,
- Serbia’s citizens need to be woken up to the fact that economic, institutional and governance performance is ultimately in their hands. Stakeholder groups, and associations, along with the public at large, need to put the government and political elites under pressure to perform, and there is much they can accomplish with self-organization, even without the government’s help.
CEVES’s activities are organized in three research directions covering:
- Typical economic think tank research & policy development activities,
- Program focused on stakeholder mobilization, and
- Outreach program that goes well beyond what is usual for think tanks.
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