News and updates from BCSDN and the region
CIVICUS released the People Power Under Attack 2018, a new report showing that nearly six in ten countries are seriously restricting people’s fundamental freedoms of association, peaceful assembly and expression. This reflects a continuing crisis facing civil society organisations and activists across the world, with the space for civic activism most commonly undermined through censorship,
Read more →Our democracies are under attack. The rise of hate, divisive, and socially and environmentally destructive political forces– including in many EU countries – are putting our democracies at risk. They are undermining democratic institutions and the rule of law by fomenting inequality and discrimination and by seeking to muzzle independent media, non-governmental organisations, trade unions,
Read more →On the 30 November and 1 December, the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation organized the final event for the Civica Mobilitas programme for support to civil society in Macedonia, including the fourth networking event for Civica Mobilitas grantees and the central national forum titled “Us, The Drivers of Change”. 132 CSO representatives took place in
Read more →Partners Albania is implementing the #GivingCircle initiative to support non-profit organizations (NPOs) who have a concrete idea or initiative to bring about social change in the community but lack the financial means or technical expertise to implement them. The “Giving Circle” event brings together individuals from different fields, offering their expertise, time and financial resources
Read more →The existing Draft Law on Social Entrepreneurship is deficient and its adoption would lead to exclusion of the majority of the existing social enterprises from a future legal regulation, according to a statement by Civic Initiatives. The wording of the Law, which was addressed in a public hearing until 23 November, exclusively limits the notion
Read more →On 17 November 2018, Yiğit Aksakoğlu, a human rights defender who serves as the Turkey Country Director for the Bernard van Leer Foundation, was arrested on the allegation of “attempting to overthrow the government or to avoid, partially or entirely, its performance”. In the early morning of 16 November 2018, police carried out simultaneous raids
Read more →George Soros’s Open Society Foundations group has said it will cease operations in Turkey, days after the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, accused the billionaire philanthropist of trying to divide and destroy nations. The organisation said it had been the target of baseless claims in the Turkish media that made it impossible for it to
Read more →The Expert Council on NGO Law of the Conference of INGOs has just published a review on international standards relating to reporting and disclosure requirements for NGOs. The review is prepared against the background of the perceived trend of Member States imposing onerous reporting and disclosure requirements on NGOs. It is hoped that this publication
Read more →Capping a three-year process, the United Nations Statistics Division has released the final edited version of the United Nations Satellite Account on Nonprofit and Related Institutions and Volunteer Work —a groundbreaking statistical guidance manual for nations to use to generate solid data on the world’s third, or social economy, sector—the TSE Sector. This Handbook offers
Read more →From 12 – 16 November 2018, AGNA’s Legitimacy, Transparency and Accountability (LTA) working group, together with the Global Standard for CSO Accountability and partners, led civil society organisations from around the world in promoting CSO accountability. Through online engagement, 11.2K people worldwide were reached, making huge uptake and momentum around accountability issues. Check out AGNA’s
Read more →On the second year of its Strategic Plan, Account, Build, Commit towards Effective People-Centered Development, the CSO Partnership implemented its program with the aim of universalising effective development cooperation (uEDC). This Report reflects the range of activities, the results achieved and the lessons learned from the challenges and successes in the year. All these happened
Read more →The European Commission has committed an additional € 500 000 to continue assisting the most vulnerable refugees and migrants in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This additional funding brings EU humanitarian assistance in the Western Balkans to € 31 million since the start of the refugee crisis in 2015, including € 2 million for Bosnia and Herzegovina
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