On 20 January, 2017, Montenegrin PM Dusko Markovic had a consultative meeting with CSO representatives organized by BCSDN’s member Center for Development of NGOs (CRNVO). In his address, PM Marokvic stated that showing intention and sincere willingness for cooperation is more than necessary, and that the Montenegrin government and CSOs shall have a direct dialogue focused on the development and implementation of quality public policies. He acknowledged CSO representatives’ contribution to the numerous legal acts, and reassured the participants that the Government will not be hostile to CSOs in the future. During the consultations, CSOs’ representatives gave their suggestion for…
Author: anja
After more than two years of collecting information, First Prosecutor’s Office in Belgrade, Serbia did not find grounds for initiating criminal proceedings against unidentified persons involved in the enforcement of competition within the Ministry of Labor, Employment and Social Policy, during which, an attempt to make illegal allocation of over two million EUR for social services has been made. The competition has been opened in 2014 and canceled at the end of that year due to abuses to which numerous CSOs pointed as allocation of financial resources to CSOs that have been registered only a month before the competition and…
Bilateral and multilateral donors occupy a critical position in the prevailing human rights business model. Their funding is essential for advancing human rights, yet with their current approaches, they may also be inadvertently accelerating the process of closing civic space. While donors partner with civil society to counter shrinking civic space, their frequently rigid funding systems—which often focus on short-term projects rather than long-term struggles—can actually undermine effectiveness, and hamper support to new movements critical for social change. Institutional donors now need to critically reassess their role in the human rights business model. Part of this process—which needs to be…
New research shows that developing countries send trillions of dollars more to the west than the other way around. We have long been told a compelling story about the relationship between rich countries and poor countries. The story holds that the rich nations of the OECD give generously of their wealth to the poorer nations of the global south, to help them eradicate poverty and push them up the development ladder. The US-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI) and the Centre for Applied Research at the Norwegian School of Economics recently published some fascinating data. They tallied up all of the financial resources that…
It is with great pleasure that we announce the appointment of the new acting Executive Director of BCSDN. Ilina Nesik, assume this role as of January 20th 2017 when Tanja Hafner Ademi, officially ended her long time engagement in BCSDN. Ilina will be responsible for driving BCSDN to the next level, building on the solid foundation and momentum achieved by the BCSDN team under Tanja Hafner Ademi’s leadership. She has vast experience in all aspects of BCSDN work by being a part of the team for more than 6 years. She brings a great mix of leadership, inspiration, operational experience,…
BCSDN member Cenzura Plus, from the 23rd – 25th of January 2017 organized an International Conference on The Role of EU Funds in Sustainability of Civil Society in the New EU Member States. The purpose of the conference was to examine how the EU funds contributed to the sustainability of civil society, what is the status of civil society in the candidate countries and potential candidates for EU membership, as the governments of these countries are preparing for the decentralization of EU pre-accession funds. The Croatian a good experience was presented, and how to avoid bad examples that have occurred…
The project: Maximizing the integration capacity of the European Union: Lessons and prospects for enlargement and beyond (MAXCAP) was a collaborative project of 9 partners consortium academic excellence that seek to explain the outcomes of the EU’s Enlargement process – and to assess conditions and mechanisms for improving those outcomes. MAXCAP investigates how a multiplicity of factors affect Enlargement in combinations and how the EU might maximize its integration capacity for current and future Enlargements and give concrete policy recommendations. In total cover, 22 publications have been published, and can be accessed free of charge on MAXCAP’s website. BCSDN collected and summarized…
Philanthropists have championed new causes and new forms of public goods and ultimately sought state support for them. Disruptive philanthropy is any activity that through the magnitude of donations either explicitly or by consequence alters the public conversation about which social issues matter, sets an agenda for how they matter, and specifies who is the preferred provider of services to address these issues without any engagement with the deliberative processes of civil society. Disruptive philanthropy seeks to shape civic values in the image of funders’ interests and, in lieu of soliciting public input, seeks to influence or change public opinion and…
Third Sector Impact has recently issued the final report on third sector barriers and coping strategies. TSI’s Annette Zimmer and Benedikt Pahl are presenting findings from national research in a comparative manner. The first part of the report provides an overview of the common barriers third sector organizations face across Europe. In the second part they highlight some of the specific challenges of third sector organizations in the organizational fields TSI investigated: sports, social services and arts and culture. In the third part they scrutinize some of the specific challenges of TSOs in particular country regimes, before summarizing the organizational…
The defense of human rights has been a cornerstone of inclusive and open societies over the past decades. Multiple sources from within and without the human rights movement have pointed to a deteriorating rule of law over the past 10 years, and a declining respect for basic civil and political rights. They warn of a new era of controlled freedom that is likely to undermine stability in the countries in question. The space for civic freedoms is being gradually restricted. So what does this restriction look like? Methods range from the suppression of mass protest and silencing of individual protesters…