In Montenegro only 150 legal enterprises have certificates and thus integrating practice standardization is extremely important. This is the conclusion of the roundtable held in Budva, Bijelo Pole and Podgorica, by TACSO Office and CRNVO, in cooperation with the Office for cooperation with NGOs of the General Secretariat of Montenegro. The roundtables aimed at promoting the value and benefits of implementation of a system ensuring quality of the work of civil society, and gathered over 100 CSO representatives and dozens of representatives of state authorities. The speakers at the conference stressed the importance of education for self-regulation in order to…
Author: anja
On 29th January, 2016, Smart kolektiv and CSR Forum launched the CSR Index – the first national platform for evaluating corporate social responsibility. The online platform was designed to recognize, reward, and promote good practices of responsible business in Serbia. The first indexing cycle will be open to companies in March 2016. Companies will have the opportunity to find themselves on the first national list of socially responsible companies, to obtain full reports on the corporate social responsibility of their company, and to contribute to the process of creating the first national statistics that shows the connection of responsible business…
The Network for Emancipation E-net and the non-profit media initiative organised a forum entitled “Defending freedom of speech”. In the spotlight of the debate were the first steps of the new Government that “has developed “a new national paradigm” of cultural and media policy, which represents a serious attack on professional journalism, media pluralism and human rights”. The initiative says that, the unjustified abolition of the expert committee for non-profit media in the Ministry of culture and the announcement of the termination of – the already too small – co-financing of the journalistic work, are a reaction of the controversial…
CRNVO has, once again, stressed the necessity to urgently create a new system of financing of CSO projects from the state budget, which is envisaged with the changes of the law on CSOs. CRNVO analysed the process of distribution of funds from games of chance and in this regard expresses concern about how are the CSO projects being evaluated, as well as the results of the competition itself, which shows that the Commission has not made a single qualitative shift in the funds allocation process, as previously announced. CRNVO representatives argued that, in the same way as in the previous…
The Conference: “Volunteering and Legislative Framework – good practices and EU standards” was organised by TACSO on 15-19 December in Montenegro to respond to the need for development of a legal framework that is favourable to volunteering in the Western Balkans. It aimed to hear the experiences of the neighbouring EU countries and was a good opportunity to exchange knowledge. The Conference report, now available, provides summaries of the legal framework for volunteering in EU member states, with a focus on Croatia and Slovenia, and presents models and legal framework examples from the non-EU countries in the Western Balkans: BiH,…
One of the core aims of CIVICUS is to tirelessly defend the fundamental freedoms of association and assembly that underpin the work of civil society – and it seems that civic space around Europe is under threat. In order to better respond to this changing environment, CICIVSU and the Civil Society Europe (CSE) platform conduct a survey of what civil society leaders think about conditions in their country – what has been happening and what colleagues think is likely to happen. All responses will be confidential, and contacts details will not be shared with third parties. The results will be…
This year, we are celebrating one of the most important anniversaries: The world’s core international human rights treaties are turning 50. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) were both adopted by the UN General Assembly on December 16, 1966. The ICCPR, of course, enshrines the international rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association in articles 21 and 22, respectively. The ICESCR, protects the right to form trade unions and to strike. Adoption and implementation have been imperfect, no doubt. But the ICCPR and ICESCR…
In consortium with Ariadne (the European Funders for Social Change and Human Rights) and the International Human Rights Funders Group (IHRFG), the European Foundation Centre (EFC) has published a report on Challenging the Closing Space for Civil Society, A Practical Starting Point for Funders. The report aims to provide grantmakers, private funders and other CSOs key methods to counteract the growing threats to civil society, including counterterrorism laws and policies. This report shares the perspectives of numerous donors, civil society representatives, and experts engaged with this issue and offers ways of aligning work moving forward. The report also offers links…
BCSDN’s member TUSEV has prepared an Info Note that analyzes the legislative framework on volunteerism and the key principles developed by international organizations to guide all lawmaking efforts on volunteerism. The text also discusses the current legal situation and new developments with regards to volunteering in Turkey and the Western Balkans. As the Note states, despite the progress that Turkey and the Western Balkan countries recorded in developing volunteering laws, volunteer work is often carried out informally and the contractual relationships that seek to protect volunteers’ rights are usually not established. Experts from the BCSDN members including TUSEV and other partners worked together to develop the Monitoring Matrix on Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development, through which the…
On 4th and 5th of February, in Belgrade, the Western Balkan CSOs Global Development Partner and Strategy Meeting took place. The two-day annual partner strategy meeting brought together CSO representatives of each partner country to be involved in this new project. Local coordinators and representatives of all project partner organisations, including BCSDN and some of its members, met in order to refine the strategy for implementation of the project, as well as to exchange information and enhance knowledge on relevant topics related to development cooperation and CSO platform building. The meeting also allowed participants to get acquainted more closely to the…