The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) organized the Regional Cooperation Day “End of a tough year, what will 2016 be like?” in Sarajevo from 18th-19th December 2015to discuss with CSOs and academia the upcoming challenges for civil society in the region. The conference was opened by Mr. Goran Svilanovic – Secretary General of The Regional Cooperation Council, who reflected on the challenges the Balkan countries are facing, followed by an open discussion panel on the EU Country reports and what they tell us about the most pressing issues for genuine progress in the EU accession process. Numerous CSO and academia representatives…
Author: anja
On December 28th, 2015 the Agency for the Support of Civil Society (AMSHC) started the procedure for selecting CSOs’ candidates for the National Council for Civil Society in the implementation of Law No. 119, on the Establishment and Functioning of the National Council for Civil Society beyond the Council. The procedure will run with public consultations closing on January 11th, 2016, while an open meeting with the Ministry of Social Welfare and Youth will be held on January 12th, 2016 so that the Ministry provides its final recommendations and decides upon the candidates. So as to ensure a transparent and…
Institute Alternative called the European Commission for a proactive approach in making the negotiations process more open to the public, in a letter sent to the President of the European Commission, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker and to the Commissioner for the Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations. The Institute pointed to the fact that since the beginning of accession negotiations, the Government has used the Commission’s opinions on draft legislation and strategic documents as a key argument for their adoption or lack of thereof. However, it has refused to make the EC’s documents available to MPs, CSOs and the general public. In…
Ms. Antonita Fonari, Secretary General at the National Council of NGOs from Moldova / Vice-president of the National Participation Council is the new representative of the Black Sea and Balkans Sub-region within the Global Council of 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 focus to support country, sub-regional and regional, and sectoral civil society, combining this with the coordinated regional and global work on development…
The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is just four years old, but already has the potential to help fight against restrictions on civil society space. It will only achieve that, however, if it helps countries develop commitments that protect civil society and recognises the corrosive role of money in politics. It seems self-evident that open governments need open societies. It should therefore be hard to imagine a government committing to increased transparency and engagement with citizens while at the same time incarcerating citizens for stating an opinion. Disturbingly, this is exactly what is happening in a growing number of countries today.…
All around the world, active citizenship is under attack and the space for civic engagement is closing—not just in countries that have struggled under repressive or autocratic governments, but also in democracies with longstanding traditions of supporting freedom of expression. There are many different reasons for this shrinking of the public space. Civil society is enormous in its size and diversity. We are members of the media, for-profit businesses, volunteer associations, political parties, trade unions, faith communities, private foundations, and non-profit organizations. If we are united at all, we are united by our work outside of government and the state…
On 18th December, 2015, the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” (IDSCS) presented the policy brief “How to enhance the involvement of CSOs in services’ provision? Situation, Challenges and Opportunities”. The policy brief has been prepared within the framework of the IDSCS project “CSOs as Service Providers: Enhancing the practices and increasing opportunities”, supported by the Balkan Public Policy Fund – an activity under the project led by BCSDN, Balkan Civil Society Acquis – Strengthening the Advocacy and Monitoring Potential and Capacities of CSOs. The aim of the project was to identify the opportunities and challenges to CSOs in Macedonia in…
As global humanitarian needs are set to reach a historic high in 2016, the European Commission is stepping up its humanitarian budget to record levels. On 16th December, the European Commission has adopted its humanitarian aid budget for 2016. With nearly EUR 1.1 billion as an initial allocation, it is the highest EU humanitarian budget for life-saving relief in man-made and natural disasters to date. The record budget comes as global humanitarian needs are increasing due to the growing number of refugees and displaced persons as a result of armed conflict, the increasing impact of natural disasters, climate change and…
On the 17th and the 18th of December, BCSDN Board held a Strategic workshop and a regular 3rd session of the Board that served as a basis for discussing the new Mid-term strategy of the network and next steps to be taken in this regard. The Executive Office (EO) has previously prepared a discussion document, which served as a basis for development of the new strategy for the period 2017-2020. The Board focused on discussing the key challenges and dilemmas, starting from the network purpose, membership and fine tuning of the mid-term goals and priorities. Ionut Sibian, representative of EESC…
The Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) organized the Regional Cooperation Day “End of a tough year, what will 2016 be like?” to discuss with CSOs and academia the upcoming challenges for civil society in the region. BCSDN’s Policy and Advocacy Officer Biljana Spasovska participated at the one-and-a-half day event that took place in Sarajevo from 18th-19th December 2015. The conference was opened by Mr. Goran Svilanovic – Secretary General of The Regional Cooperation Council, who reflected on the challenges the Balkan countries are facing, followed by an open discussion panel on the EU Country reports and what they tell us about…