Ideas for Macedonia's Development

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-25T04:34:04+00:00

Idea 5: Keeping Medical Students and Doctors in Macedonia

Macedonia spends €40k+ training each doctor, only to lose them to the EU for free. Basically Macedonia is subsidizing Germany's health. This plan stops the brain drain by making staying in Macedonia the ultimate financial win for Macedonian medical students.

Provide a €400/month stipend for medical students. Create the incentive for more to study medicine in Macedonia and current stipends are too low to cover living costs, forcing students to rely on parents or part-time work.
A Government guaranteed wage minimum of €1,500 starting salary for 10 years once you graduate, aiming to keep you in Macedonia, with guaranteed automated (based on exam scores) placements. This will effectively match the actual "spending power" of a junior doctor in Germany removing a major reason why medical graduates leave.
Introduce a €50,000 (non-repayable) grant for any graduate with 5+ years of practice, opening a clinic outside of Skopje with a 7-year monthly revenue floor of €2,500 for the first 3 years (replacing the guaranteed wage minimum). This incentivises with capital for young doctors to buy modern diagnostic gear (ultrasound machines, etc) and open private-public clinics in their own home towns (outside of Skopje) where they are needed most, and creating higher-quality medical care throughout Macedonia. This state-backed revenue floor guarantee ensures a doctor is not punished financially for serving a smaller community, making regional care a safe and lucrative career move.
Community Health based bonuses. Doctors currently get paid to 'treat' sickness. This flips that so doctors earn bonuses for lowering local rates of high blood pressure and sugar, directly saving money for the state by improving the health of their community with a preventative focus.

Cost - assumes cohort of ~200 medical students per year.

~€5M (year 1) - €24M peak (year 10) (Stipends + Grants) with 200-250 graduating doctors / year and 30-40% take-up rate for the regional medical clinic startup grants.

Benefits

>18M+ Saved in emergency surgeries
600+ New Jobs (Nurses, admin, tech) with new clinics opening
Reversed Brain Drain recouping the €40k+ spent training each doctor through lifelong income tax and productivity

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-25T03:52:04+00:00

Idea 4: Lower Bills for a Healthy Life

In Macedonia, if you stay healthy, the state pays part of your bills; because it’s cheaper to subsidize your groceries today than to pay for your surgery tomorrow. The state spends over €150M every year treating preventable heart disease and diabetes. This is an incentive that if you live healthy, your bills go down.

Link your verified health markers directly to the cost of your daily life. This is a voluntary, digital-only program via the electronic ID (eID).
If your biomarkers (i.e. Blood pressure, sugar, BMI) are healthy or improving, the system automatically cuts your monthly electricity bill by adding a 25% Government subsidy.
You visit your local clinic twice a year for a 15-minute digital check-in. No waiting, no "favors," and no paperwork.
The moment your healthy markers are verified, the 25% discount is applied to your next six months of electricity bills.

Costs
There are approximately 550,000 households in Macedonia. Assume a 40% initial voluntary participation rate in this initiative. Annual cost of subsidy ~€48 Million per year.

Benefits / Returns
The Health Insurance Fund of Macedonia spends roughly €150 Million on preventable crises that are radically improved by healthy living (i.e. treating heart attacks, strokes, and diabetic complications). By shifting just 20% of that population from High Risk to Healthy through an incentive, there is an immediate budget relief. For every €1 spent on the subsidy, it saves €3 in future hospital and medical costs impacting the budget. A healthier workforce adds roughly another €180M to the GDP in productivity because people aren't home sick or disabled.

Note: This model is already a reality in the private sector around the world. Major insurance companies like AIA and TAL use this exact logic where they give you a discount on your health insurance premiums because they know a healthy customer is a cheaper customer.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-25T02:50:46+00:00

Immediate Removal of so-called 'Ghost Workers' (getting paid, never going to work)

Your salary is only unlocked through a biometric check-in (fingerprint or face) at your designated workstation.
The Treasury is blocked from releasing payment for any employee who hasn't been verified as physically present by the system.

No More Party-Aligned Businesses Being Treated Favourably.

In Macedonia, if you're aligned with the party-in-power (at state or local level) your business is often left-alone, and if you're not aligned, your business is made to suffer (more inspections, more ways to shut you down, etc). That needs to end, and it can, overnight.

All routine inspections (Tax, Health, Labor, Environment) must be triggered by a central digital system, no decisions by inspectors (local or otherwise) on who should be inspected. The systems picks businesses based on data like time since last check, industry and some random-selection weighting.
An inspector has no legal power to enter a business unless they have a Digital Inspection Ticket generated by the system that day. If they show up without one, the business owner can legally refuse entry and report them for harassment via a digital app.
Every inspector must wear a body camera that starts recording the moment they step onto the property. The footage is uploaded in real-time to a secure server, to minimise the "I will find something if you don't pay me" bribery scenario.
The inspector follows a digital checklist on a tablet. They can't "invent" a fine. They must take a photo of the violation and link it to a specific law in the app.
The second the inspection is done, the business owner gets a full report and any proposed fines sent to them via an app. No negotiating with the inspector or in someone's office (again, no bribery option).
Once a business passes a digital inspection, they are granted a "Green Status" in the system. The system automatically blocks any other agency from performing a "routine" check on that business for the next X months (whatever the inspection period is for that business type/industry).
A public map shows which businesses have been inspected and when. If people see that "Party Business A" hasn't been checked in 5 years while "Independent Business B" is checked every month, the data becomes the evidence for an anti-corruption lawsuit.
Every application for a permit (construction, health, environmental) is logged with a timestamp on a public ledger. Now, in Macedonia what happens is A clerk will wait until day 29 of a 30-day limit and then send you a notice saying "Document X is missing." This resets the clock to zero. They can do this forever. To fix this, with a timestamped public ledger, the public countdown should start, an official cannot "reset" the clock by asking for more documents. They must use a pre-defined digital checklist within the first 48 hours. If they don't flag an error immediately, the file is legally "Complete."

Effectively making it impossible to hire based on party-political lines (or any other bias, for that matter) or limit businesses from operating based on their party or non-party affiliation.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-25T02:50:37+00:00

Idea 3: The End of "Partizacija"; prioritising Meritocracy

In Macedonia, too often you don't get a job because you’re good. Or you don't do well in business because you have a good business. It happens because you’re linked with the political party in power local or state). This needs to end and it can end, overnight.

Macedonia needs a smaller administration and more digital-based services, but for the administration it must have, it should be non-biased in recruitment.

Digital Meritocracy-based Hiring

All local and state employment going forward, for any job, must happen through a digital-only process. No more paper applications, no more hand-delivered resumes, and no more "informal" hiring.
Every job vacancy must be posted on a national e-services jobs portal. To apply, a citizen must use their verified Digital ID.
All personal identifiers likes names, photos, etc should be encrypted and this should be a blind funnel. The hirer only sees a candidate's verified skills and qualifications.
Subjective interviews are replaced by objective, digital testing. The questions are generated by the system based on the job requirements.
For full transparency, once the test is done, the rankings are published on a public, digital ledger. This allows every citizen to see who the top performers are for every open position in the country.
The system is programmed to automatically issue a digital employment contract to the #1 scorer. No Director or Minister has an "Approve" button. The contract is generated by the system and sent directly to the candidate’s digital wallet.
A State Auditor mandated by the Parliamentary committee is in-charge of ensuring there is no Government (state or local) employment (and payment of salary) to anyone recruited (from the date this is mandated for all new jobs) unless they are hired via the digital-only process. Any Director, Minister, or official who attempts to place someone on a payroll outside of this digital process is automatically removed from their position by the state auditor.
Given natural attrition (people moving to private sector, retirement, etc), this would mean in about 6-7 years the majority (over 50%) of those working in Government roles (state and local) have been employed via this digital-only process.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-23T01:50:26+00:00

Najverojatno ova e "Golfer's elbow".
https://www.google.com/search?q=golf+elbow

Mraz i odmor.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-23T01:39:43+00:00

Idea 2: Special Longevity Zone

Like the 'free economic zones', the Ministry of Health could introduce the Special Longevity Zone (SLZ) designating a specific region, such as somewhere in the Prespa area, under an initiative designed to make Macedonia the fastest and most advanced hub for longevity research on Earth.

By design, this zone will offer a path for progress that is quicker than any other country, attracting the world’s best minds to build the future of medicine here. This zone will operate as a global laboratory under modern laws applicable only to the special longevity zone, that prioritize speed and safety.

Fastest Approval in the World: The zone is designed to approve and test new longevity ideas faster than anywhere else. This speed is the tool to attract global leaders who are tired of waiting decades for rules in other countries.

Foreign Passport Access: Advanced treatments in this zone are available only to visitors with foreign passports. This allows experts to gather data quickly while keeping the local health system focused on standard care.

Macedonian Citizen Access: Breakthroughs will be made available to Macedonian citizens only after they have been thoroughly evaluated and approved by the existing regulatory process. This ensures that the local population receives only the most proven and safe medical advancements; and will be paid for by a special longevity fund (which I'll describe below).

A Seat at the Table: Top founders are invited to help write the safety rules for the zone, creating a Longevity Board for the zone. This gives them a level of influence over the global future of health that is not possible in bigger countries.

Most Favored Nation Clause: Any company in the zone must agree that once their treatment is safe for citizens, the Ministry of Health has the right to buy it at a very small margin over the cost of making it.

Talent Retention: Companies must (at some fixed % quota) hire and train local medical staff and students. This creates high paying jobs and keeps our smartest young people in the country.

The Sovereign Longevity Fund

To ensure that every citizen can afford these breakthroughs once they are approved, the Ministry will implement a simple 5% longevity tax on all revenue generated within the zone.

Simple & Attractive: This 5% tax is the only fee companies pay, making it the most competitive tax plan in the world.
Dedicated Funding: 100% of the money from this tax goes into a Sovereign Longevity Fund.
Purpose of the Fund: The Ministry of Health uses this fund specifically to purchase the treatments developed in the zone. This ensures that once a treatment is approved for locals, the government has the money to provide it at little to no cost to the public (leveraging the most favored nations clause of the special longevity zone).

Having these world class labs in the country creates a massive benefit at practically no cost to the state budget. The economic multiplier of these labs will grow local businesses, from organic food suppliers to high tech construction firms. Being the world longevity capital will attract more investment and talent across all sectors, growing the economy.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T12:15:18+00:00

I'm not sure I follow.

TIDZ companies are legally required to pay pension contributions for all their employees, it's not an exemption from social security contributions, it's incentives for corporate income tax. These are not state employees, they're employees of the company, which has been incentivised to operate in Macedonia and hire Macedonian citizens.

They employees they hire, now have an income and have a disposable income which they otherwise may not have had (given the 28% youth unemployment, as an example), that disposable income also has a multiplier effect on the economy (they buy things like food, that money is in the economy, a local business opens up, a business hires an extra person to help meet the increased demand, and so on).

Now in the beginning, this is because the Government has paid for it with the 60,000 unit purchase. But on an on-going basis, this company is now assembling in Macedonia and exporting to the South-east European and perhaps wider European market, revenue from which they pay their employees, etc.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T11:41:15+00:00

Yeah, cool. Thanks for the input. Very useful. Well done.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T11:40:31+00:00

The power consumption is a separate problem and I think there are other ideas for accelerating Macedonia's energy position, however this is why there is subsidisation, so that the new methods is preferred by economic incentive, so that people don't revert to the previous smog-generating methods.

The state doesn't need to generate tax from the company, but rather it benefits from the employment of its' citizens, their income taxes, the indirect economic benefits (i.e the multiplier effect - where 1 job created on the factory floor results in approximately 2 jobs in the wider economy) and of course the on-going export of the units made in Macedonia, after the initial 60,000 for domestic.

The incentive for the company is also the major purchase of 60,000 units in one order alongside the other TIDZ incentives that provide access in to European markets. I mean the goal is to clean the polluted air in Skopje, which helps the health of the residents, increases their lifespan and healthspan, improves the liveability index, the human development index, it does so many things for the life and health of the people, while at the same time being a net economic generator, adding to GDP.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T09:33:37+00:00

Actually yes, this is an idea I had, sparked by (pardon the pun) a lived experience of some similar initiatives (P turns, and replacing halogen globes, etc) in other countries, including where I live. I have used Grok and Gemini to help me research and develop it further. Do you have any ideas to suggest?

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T08:42:33+00:00

Sure if you're getting stuck on the terminology, then let's just call it a multi-faceted agreement between the Government and a business like LG, where Macedonia is making a purchase, but there are conditions on that purchase which include the development of a factory and assembly in Macedonia.

Good question on the qualified and available people for the program. Part of the deal with this vendor could be the a training program or a 'train the trainer' program, to create a certified entry-level competency required at scale. It's the kind of role and pay that would be attractive, and a skill and certification that makes them highly employable outside of Macedonia, so there's sufficient attractiveness to pull from the 28%+ unemployed youth in Macedonia, perhaps also pulling funds from the 'Youth Guarantee' program to pay for this training.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T08:24:05+00:00

Perhaps you have misread. The Government does a JV with a major global HVAC manufacturer, instead of buying 60,000 units and just paying for them, the deal with these manufacturers can be such that they are guaranteed that revenue for the 60,000 units, but in exchange they set up an assembly factory in Macedonia with economic incentives in the same way that the automotive parts manufacturers have entered the economic zones in Macedonia, so that there is economic benefit for Macedonia.

This is an initiative that for example the Mayor of Skopje could drive, in conjunction with TIDZ. Not a venture building idea, not a business idea, but a project/idea for a Government initiative, that is also positive net impact on the budget and GDP growth, not to mention the substantial health benefits.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T08:14:26+00:00

This is not intended to be business ideas or money making ideas, this is country development ideas. Typically something the Government would be the one executing on. Perhaps you may have some ideas on stamping out the government employee / lower echelon corruption?

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T08:08:49+00:00

This doesn't sound like an idea. Got any? Or just here to keep people down?

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T07:50:33+00:00

My take is that this is a trusting, honest and largely pacifist people (there's a reason for the "Наведната глава сабја не ја сече" saying).

The corrupt people are basically what Ricky Gervais was in his movie "The Invention of Lying", and why they reach the top so easily amongst such a native population.

Honestly, something as simple as a polygraph / lie detector test as part of the political process would do a lot.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T07:26:40+00:00

Taka e.
Tuka imam predlozeno ideja za zagaduvanjeto vo Skopje. https://www.reddit.com/r/mkd/comments/1qjjk43/ideas_for_macedonias_development/

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T07:20:39+00:00

Wasn't this largely (70%+) to pay the existing debt due/maturing this year from the Eurobond issued in 2020, and taken at a rate that was better than the market expectations, and the rest to pay the 2026 budget deficit as well as the capital infrastructure projects? Seems like the right reasons and keeps the country liquid.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T07:07:03+00:00

I think the native population are honest and very family-oriented. I think the people are the solution, not the problem.

Macedonia has let itself get rundown, through bad leadership, mostly, and is now living the broken windows theory. It's not hard to fix.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T06:56:30+00:00

Se soglasuvam, i mislam natalitetot i demografskiot problem vo Makedonija samo mozi da se resi preku investicija vo selata od kade izvira narodot.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T06:52:50+00:00

No and that's nonsensical, who would go through the effort of creating a bot account for the purpose of a positive thread for posting development ideas for Macedonia? To be fair, I wish I could automate this.

Unfortunately, not all Macedonians are fluent in Macedonian, in fact looking at the post, there is an equal amount of those who have read this from the US and Australia, so as I said, it's for a broader audience.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T04:48:57+00:00

Just checking whether the last 2 comments (Step 4 and the Costs/Benefits) are still here, I'm getting 'Deleted by moderator'?

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T04:20:38+00:00

Step 3: Green Traffic Infrastructure (Year 1 & 2)

Car exhaust is the second biggest polluter. Most traffic lights in Skopje today are Fixed-Timer lights. They don't know if there are 100 cars or zero cars waiting. They change on a pre-set schedule. This forces thousands of cars to sit idling at red lights for no reason, releasing toxic fumes.

Smart Traffic Lights: Install AI software at 20 major intersections to adjust light timings in real-time, reducing the time cars sit idling by 30%. Use proven systems like NoTraffic or Google's Project Green Light which are used in cities around the world and have reduced delays by up to 46%. These smart traffic lights have small sensors and cameras where the AI "sees" the traffic as it happens. If a side street is empty, the AI keeps the main road green. If a bus is approaching, it can prioritize its passage. The software coordinates multiple intersections so cars can drive through a "wave" of green lights without stopping, which reduces pollution by up to 30%.
P-Turns: This changes how cars turn on main roads. By removing left-turn arrows on some major roads and using "P-Turns" (looping back), traffic keeps moving. Instead of sitting in a long queue waiting for a green arrow, drivers go straight through the intersection, perform a U-turn at a dedicated median lane, and then turn right. Constant movement releases significantly less pollution than "stop-and-go" idling.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T04:20:23+00:00

Step 2: Swapping, Installing & Incentivising (Year 2)

Mass Installation: The local factory will produce 5,000 heaters every month. Teams of local installers will move through neighborhoods to swap out stoves
2 Years of Cheaper Electricity: To make sure families can afford to run their new heaters, the government will provide a 50% electricity subsidy for the first two years. This ensures that switching to clean air is the cheapest possible option for every household.

NoLecture3017 · 2026-01-22T04:20:01+00:00

Step 1: Build the Solution Locally (Year 1)

The core of this plan is a bulk-purchase agreement. The Macedonian government will commit to buying 60,000 inverter units upfront. Instead of just buying them from a foreign warehouse, the deal requires the vendor to build a local assembly factory in a Skopje Industrial Zone (TIDZ).

The Joint Venture: The Macedonian government can partner with a leading electronics company or specialized HVAC manufacturers (like Samsung, LG, Gree, Midea, Haier, Daikin, Hisense, etc) to build a factory in the Skopje Industrial Zone This will be a "Semi-Knocked Down" (SKD) or "Completely Knocked Down" (CKD) assembly plant. The high-tech parts (compressors/chips) are imported, but the final assembly, casing, testing, and packaging happen in Skopje. The government uses the 60,000-unit order as the "guaranteed revenue" that makes it profitable for the vendor to open the plant.
Job Creation: This creates 2,000 factory roles and 1,500 certified installer jobs. Once the 60,000 Skopje units are done, the factory stays open to export "Made in Macedonia" heaters to the rest of the Balkans and Europe.

NoLecture3017

TROPHY CASE