News and updates from BCSDN and the region
How will European Union governments’ focus on preventing migration affect the development landscape? Will the attempt to stimulate private sector investment in Africa and the EU neighborhood through the External Investment Plan pay off? And what form will the EU’s relationship with the African, Caribbean and Pacific states take beyond 2020? These will be some
Read more →One year ago, NGO executives and aid agency leaders were imagining what Brexit and a newly elected President Donald Trump might mean for their work and for the world. Today we know much more. But there remains uncertainty beyond what’s normal, even though to a lesser extent than last year. For one thing, an unprecedented
Read more →As part of the Global Standard for CSO Accountability project, and the project “Promoting Civic Space: Duties and Participants” supported by Civica Mobilitas, BCSDN provided a translation of the Global Standard in Macedonian language. The purpose of the Global Standard is to mainstream a dynamic approach to accountability in ways which strengthen CSO effectiveness, connectedness
Read more →The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will not be achieved without significant public awareness and engagement. It is citizens who will hold governments accountable to the promises they made in 2015, and we need to find innovative ways of raising public pressure to deliver a more just and sustainable world by 2030. Only through such an
Read more →New trends in decentralised cooperation offer a major opportunity for local and regional governments and communities to jointly develop innovative approaches to improving people’s lives. The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the development effectiveness principles adopted in Busan are the roadmap for these new partnerships. These are the key messages presented in a
Read more →As countries around the globe contend with the threat of terrorism, the challenges to civil liberties and civil society have never been greater. Acknowledging the threat posed by violent actors in many parts of the world is not a carte blanche to crackdowns on legitimate dissent, on protest, on the freedom of assembly and freedom
Read more →Recent scandals about the role of social media in key political events in the US, UK and other European countries over the past couple of years have underscored the need to understand the interactions between digital platforms, misleading information and propaganda, and their influence on collective life in democracies. In response to this, the Public
Read more →The policy paper “From Aiming EU Accession back to Albanian Participative Decision Making– Policy analyses and options to improve public participation practices in environmental decision making”, represents the final and among the most important outputs of EDEN Center within the project “Horizon to EU accession – engaging civil society and active citizenship in environmental policies.
Read more →BCSDN will be the focal point for the newly created Balkan Sub-region within the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE). CPDE is an open platform that unites civil society voices from around the world on the issue of development effectiveness. In order to develop a strong basis for CSO participation, CPDE works with a strong
Read more →While 2016 was a year of challenges and despair when it comes to the future of the EU and its enlargement in the Western Balkans, 2017 brought some much-needed positive news. The year ahead of us is widely considered to be of great importance for the EU enlargement process in the Western Balkans, and expectations
Read more →The EESC urges the EU and its Member States to adopt a European-level cybersecurity model, to strengthen the mandate of the European cybersecurity agency and, lastly, to establish an effective European certification scheme for online services and products. The EU should agree on a European cybersecurity model, give the EU cybersecurity agency a stronger role
Read more →One of the aims of the BENCHER Project is to deepen further the analysis of the European Commission country reports for all the Western Balkan countries, providing a more critical review of the EC assessments. Furthermore, this year’s analysis dedicates a special focus to the recommendations provided by the EC in the 2015 and 2016
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