News and updates from BCSDN and the region
The Romanian Government has created a tool for challenging NGOs that may oppose its agenda under the guise of monitoring how they spend money received from citizens through tax donations. The Association for the Defence of Human Rights in Romania – the Helsinki Committee (APADOR-CH) has asked the Romanian Ombudsman to appeal Constitutional Court Order
Read more →USAID published the 21st edition of their Civil Society Organization Sustainability Index (CSOSI) for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia, covering developments in 24 countries in the region during 2017. Half of the countries covered reported regression in the legal environments governing their CSO sectors, though the level of CSO sustainability continues to vary widely
Read more →Foreign Policy Initiative BH, in cooperation with Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung BiH and BiH Foreign Trade Chamber, presented the policy analysis “European (Re)Connection of the Balkans – the Search for new Modalities of Cooperation” by Igor Kosić. The aim of the analysis was to highlight the importance of the regional cooperation of six Western Balkans countries, on the
Read more →The lack of media freedom and the pressures and threats have made it more and more difficult for journalists in the Western Balkans to work. The fall of communist Yugoslavia and the end of the one-party system was followed by a brief period of increasing freedom and the development of the media system. However, the
Read more →A new discussion paper by Ivan Nikolovski from IDSCS aims to incite a discussion between the Macedonian government and civil society over the model of inclusion of civil society in the accession talks. It elaborates the models of inclusion of CSOs in the accession negotiations of Serbia and Montenegro – two Western Balkan countries currently
Read more →Call for applications has just been launched for participants to the 11th Edition of the Black Sea NGO Forum, which will take place between the 12th and 14th of November 2018, in Brussels, Belgium. The Forum this year aims to draw attention on the importance of the Black Sea Synergy and on the contribution brought
Read more →The Building a Better Response Platform provides free online training and in-person workshops, aimed to strengthen the capacity of NGO staff, as well as other humanitarian actors, to engage in humanitarian coordination and improve response to the needs of crisis-affected populations. The aim of these workshops is to provide participants with an in-depth understanding of
Read more →The European Commission’s Rights has launched a Call for Proposals within its Equality and Citizenship Programme open to applicants from EU Member States and Serbia. The programme is for actions aimed to support fighting against discrimination based on sexual orientation, promoting diversity management in the public and private sector, fight against various forms of discrimination
Read more →The Australian embassy in Serbia welcomes project proposals from CSOs from Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro for its Direct Aid Program to support projects addressing the following priorities: Promoting human rights, freedom of expression and good governance; Promoting gender equality and women’s empowerment as a driver for economic growth and Fostering inclusiveness for people with disabilities.
Read more →The Democracy and Media Foundation is seeking applications for its grant program to counter all forms of totalitarianism in social and political life and to strive for a vigorous democracy and multifaceted, opinionating media. The foundation prioritizes projects and organizations with clear benefit in the Netherlands, and to organizations located in the 47 member states
Read more →CONCORD has just published a policy paper evaluating the thematic programmes of the external instrument and proposing alternatives. The document explains why the current proposed amount of 7 billion EUR for thematic lines under the Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument (NDICI) is insufficient to allow the EU to be able to live up to
Read more →It was around the middle of 2016 when the Global Fund for Community Foundations, started to use the hash-tag #ShiftThePower. These are increasingly challenging times for civil society globally with many of the rules of recent decades fast being re-written. Traditional flows of aid are changing and new actors – from China’s emergence as a
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