ECMI NGO Network for the improvement of interethnic relations in Macedonia with the formulation of its mission and the main working tools, lives space for inclusion of different NGOs with different focus of the work. Today the Network is represented by NGOs coming from the field of ecology, culture, economy, education, women issues, infrastructure etc.

Besides the joint agreement to work on improving the rather sensitive interethnic issues in the Republic of Macedonia, the NGO members have come to a common interest of Networking on specific issues and therefore are moving towards expertise-based networking.

The process of formation of the Sub Networks has began in year 2002 as spontaneous process of sector selection of the NGOs within the Network. In the period 2002 and 2003 four Sub Networks started the formation process:

Apart from the officially established intra-networks, the numerous Roma NGOs in the ECMI Network also form a spontaneous collaboration among themselves.

The process of establishment of intra-networks has gone through a number of stages, most importantly the following: the initiator of intra-networks need to carry out surveys to justify their claim about the creation of such additional structure. After having completed the requested background research, potential members IDs were collected by the initiator. The regular path to establishment of intra-networks means that at specific workshops a Memorandum of Cooperation is going to be drafted, agreed and signed by members.

The intra-networks are beneficial to their members for a number of reasons. Firstly, it is always advantageous for all NGO members to address issues of priority and common concern at national level. Moreover, the accumulative power of the NGOs working jointly is necessarily elevated comparing to their individual capacities. The intra-network is also more successful in monitoring the government policy on their specific area of work. Lobbying for an established NGO priority can rarely achieve its objective without quantitative or qualitative influence. In addition, NGO capacities as well as networking abilities of NGO members are further enhanced by the intra-networks. Altogether, one can safely claim that intra-networks add a substantial plus to networks because they are expertise oriented and they are an indication of Network sustainability.