Within their project Strengthening Local Transparency, Belgrade Open School (BOS) and Toplica Center for Democracy and Human Rights in cooperation with the Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, issued a call for program support to CSOs through small grants. The aim of the program is to further improve local transparency and inform the locals on the work of their local governments. Eligible are those CSOs that are registered or have office on the territory of those municipalities or cities whose information booklet, based on the information available on dostup.no, have less than a third of the content. The total amount…
Author: anja
AuthorAID has announced the first set of AuthorAID travel grants and workshop grants for 2016. It plans to award the following grants to people working in eligible developing countries (only Kosovo from the WBT region), following a competitive selection process. AuthorAID helps researchers in developing countries to publish and otherwise communicate their work by awarding 1) 12 travel grants (USF 1500 each) for researchers who have an accepted abstract or proposal to present at a conference, and 2) 12 workshop grants (USD 2500 each) for experienced researchers or administrators who would like to organise a workshop on a topic related…
Under the Europe for Citizens Program 2014 – 2020, strand “Democratic Engagement and Civic Participation”, EU issued a call for proposals with a deadline set on March 1st 2016. The aim of this call is to foster European citizenship and improve conditions for civic and democratic participation at EU level, encourage democratic participation of citizens at EU level, and, support concrete participation in the EU policy-making process. The strand supports activities covering civic participation – EU policies in particular and initiatives developing opportunities for mutual understanding at EU level. It includes three specific measures – town twinning, networks of towns…
On 8th January, on invitation by The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Biljana Spasovska, BCSDN’s Policy and Advocacy Officer, participated at the Hearing in the framework of EESC opinion on “EU Enlargement Strategy”. The aim of the hearing was to gather experts from DG NEAR and other institutions and think tanks and CSOs from Brussels and the Western Balkans to discuss with the EESC study group the EESC Opinion on the EU Enlargement strategy. The hearing was opened by Mr. Andrej Zorko a Member of the EESC and the President of the Study group tasked with the preparation of…
This year CRNVO is launching four resource centers in four Montenegrin municipalities with the help of the CSOs that are already recognized in their communities – the CSO Bonum in the Pljevlja municipality, Novi Horizont in Ulcinj, Bjelopoljski Demokratski Centar in Bjelo Polje and Nada in Herceg Novi. As these resource centers will cover the neighboring municipalities, CRNVO hopes to provide CSOs and activists the opportunity to strengthen their capacities, learn new things through the participation on seminars, trainings and debates, as well as receive legal and financial advice. The project is financed by the European Union under the Civil Society…
A strong dialogue between government and civil society provides a sound foundation for open government reforms in Croatia. The adoption and implementation of commitments aimed at strengthening public consultations in policy-making responds to long-term priorities of both government and civil society. There is visible progress in citizen participation, as well as in the number of public consultations held and comments received. However, the overall level of public involvement is still low and the impact on the quality of laws and regulations remains unclear. Limited administrative capacity, compounded by a prolonged economic crisis, political and bureaucratic legacies, the low costs of…
CSOs all over the world are under significant pressure. Armed with smart phones and connected like never before, civil society actors have found new ways to organize, demand greater government accountability, and inject their voices into policy debates. As citizens’ voices have grown louder and more influential, many governments have responded by cracking down on civil society. As restrictions on foreign funding, barriers to registration, intervention in CSOs’ internal affairs, and other forms of harassment become the new normal, donors and civil society are going to have to adapt to survive. A key component of building the resilience and sustainability…
Within the Balkan Public Policy Fund, the association ZAJP from Banja Luka, BiH, with the support of CPCD, published and promoted the policy paper “Establishing Cooperation between the BiH Government and CSOs”. The paper was presented at a round table, organized on 24 November, 2015, which aimed to discuss issues relevant for establishing institutional cooperation between these two sectors in the Republika Srpska, and to initiate processes that will lead to more concrete formulation of the framework and content of the agreement for cooperation. Representatives of the executive and legislative authorities of Republika Srpska, as well as from the civil society…
On 8th January, on invitation by The European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Biljana Spasovska, BCSDN’s Policy and Advocacy Officer, participated at the Hearing in the framework of EESC opinion on “EU Enlargement Strategy”. The aim of the hearing was to gather experts from DG NEAR and other institutions and think tanks and CSOs from Brussels and the Western Balkans to discuss with the EESC study group the EESC Opinion on the EU Enlargement strategy. The hearing was opened by Mr. Andrej Zorko a Member of the EESC and the President of the Study group tasked with the preparation of…
A new Law on Amendments to Corporate Profit Tax Law, adopted on 29th December, 2015, by parliament members in National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, now ensures the equal treatment of CSOs – social care service providers. This comes as a result of long advocacy efforts for legislative changes by CSOs in Serbia, led by Trag Foundation. Earlier legal solutions anticipated that only donations donated to social care institutions established in accordance with the law regulating social care are recognized as expenditures in taxpayer’s fiscal balance, but not donations to other subjects in social care, including donations to CSOs. The newly adopted Law…