More than 16,000 young people aged 15 to 29. That is how many Pelagonia lost over two decades, between the last two censuses. That was the number standing behind the closing event of the project "Youth Policies Tailored to Young People" at the Officers' Club in Bitola - even if it wasn't the focus of the speeches.

The project, run by Pro Local together with partner civil society groups and all nine municipalities in the region, created the Regional Youth Platform. The logic is simple, and by Macedonian standards almost unusual: young people point out the problems and propose solutions, municipalities turn them into measures and find the money, and civil society groups track whether anything actually happens. After five sessions, 24 measures were adopted, 13 of which have already been delivered - from education, sport and public transport to mental health, volunteering and youth entrepreneurship.

One example is mental health support for young people in Bitola - a measure that came directly from what young people asked for. The project also produced the first national assessment of how the Law on Youth Participation and Youth Policies works in practice.

The Minister for Social Policy, Demography and Youth, Gjoko Velkovski, came with a clear message: the model should be rolled out in every planning region. "Young people are not just the future. They are the present of this country, and they must have a place in the processes where decisions that directly shape their lives are made," he said.

Mayor Toni Konjanovski says the goal is for young people to stay in Bitola and for those who left to come back, and that there are, in his words, "positive trends" on that front. No figures for those trends were offered.

That is the crux of it. Thirteen delivered measures are a real start, and a platform where young people are asked, not just mentioned in speeches, deserves to be expanded. But the question remains open: does a young person from Pelagonia leave because there's no youth council - or because of the salary, the flat and the prospects that aren't there?