News and updates from BCSDN and the region
BCSDN organized the first national consultation meetings of The Global Standard for CSO Accountability that took place in Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and Serbia from the 17th till the 21st of October hosted by BCSDN members and partners in those countries. The Standard has been created by nine CSO accountability initiatives from across the world including the Balkan Civil
Read more →The Civic Charter was developed in collaboration with civil society actors from different continents and countries through extensive consultation and advisory processes. The Charter was launched in different locations around the world in October 2016. The charter aims to support civil society organizations as activists throughout the world, to advocate for their rights and freedom
Read more →On 20 October 2016 in New York, United Nations’ first-ever Special Rapporteur Maina Khai had his final presentation to the General Assembly, reflecting on his time in mandate. The special rapporteur on the rights of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association warned that the environment for exercising civic freedoms remains hazardous
Read more →MEPs have called upon EU Commission to set up a binding, instead of the current “crisis-driven” EU mechanism, to monitor and report annually on the records in the field of democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights (DRF) in EU member states. The aim of the Parliament’s proposal is to (1) incorporate existing DRF tools
Read more →ECNL extracted key issues from each of the comprehensive country reports that monitor legal developments and practical implementation of freedom of assembly in Western Balkans countries into five user-friendly flashcards. The flashcards were designed to be useful tools for local partners to engage in in-country advocacy and reform. The brief publications (1) feature up to five issues
Read more →This year’s edition of Global Perspectives, which took place in Berlin between 26th and 28th October, brought together around 150 key leaders and experts from civil society around the world to discuss “The Future of Civic Space”. Organized by the International Civil Society Center, included addresses by Thomas Carothers from the Carnegie Endowment for International
Read more →The European Union has again failed to meet its commitment to spend 0.7% of Gross National Income on Development Aid by 2015. On 26th October in Brussels, the CONCORD Aidwatch report 2016 was published, entitled “This is not enough”, reveals that only five countries met their 2015 targets: Denmark, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.
Read more →The Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) commissioned an impact assessment of its Western Balkans program from 2010 to 2015. The overall conclusion from the assessment is that the RBF program in the Western Balkans is having a meaningful positive impact, and it is relevant to the developments in Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and the rest of the
Read more →The Aid Transparency Index is the only independent measure of transparency among the world’s leading aid organizations. It assesses organizations’ overall commitment to transparency as well as the information they publish at the organization level and for individual activities. It encourages the publication of timely, comprehensive and forward-looking data in an open format. As announced
Read more →The 23 Issue of the Assembly and Association Briefing, the newsletter of Maina Kiai, UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association has been published. In this issue you can read about: Kiai to present final report to UN General Assembly, examining assembly and association rights in the workplace, The
Read more →The state in its endeavor to support civil society development can have a positive role and thus it can provide financial support to CSOs’ operation. One of the key sources of funding is the revenue from lotteries and games of chance. In the country, these funds are potentially significant funding source for organizations’ sustainability. However,
Read more →The European Union finds itself in the midst of multiplying crises. The possible secessionist crisis triggered by Brexit is the latest manifestation of Europe’s fragility and of the declining attraction of integration. In spite of this, support for EU integration in the countries of the Western Balkans remains very high, and their peoples still perceive
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