Cleaning-up Serbia: Designing and Delivering a Public Campaign with over 200,000 volunteers

Outcomes

Apart from the environmental improvements, the initiative helped to build large amounts of social capital as people who did not know each other before worked together for a whole day.

This was a particularly important outcome in urban areas but even helped in villages, ‘Clean Serbia’ also helped to build new links between generations and ethnicities. This is especially important in a multi-ethnic society going through political, economic, and social transition following the collapse of the Tito and then Milosevic regimes. 

Most importantly, the clean-ups have also changed people’s perspectives and behaviour in relation to waste and littering. Many local authorities have reported that the amount of illegal dumping has decreased and that in general, local streets and neighborhoods have become cleaner. Sites cleaned during clean-up days have in most cases remained  well kept. Citizens are increasingly interested in environmental protection issues and are more responsive to initiatives and actions organized by local government. Citizens also now take much more interest in identifying environmental problems in their neighbourhoods.  

A survey carried out by the Serbian Government European Integration office asked over 1000 citizens (18+) where they felt most improvements were being made in the following areas important for EU integration: agriculture, environmental protection, fight against corruption, protection of human rights, reform of education and health system, reform of judiciary, and so on. The survey showed that the highest number of citizens felt that most improvements in their everyday life were being made in relation to environmental protection (14% of respondents).

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