Within the framework of the International Visegrad Fund (Visegrad-Balkan Public Policy Fund), Young Researchers Programme, on the 24th of April 2014 in Skopje, the “Promotion of the selected IVF Fellowships from Macedonia” took place, organized by BCSDN. The project is implemented by the Balkan Civil Society Development Network-BCSDN (Macedonia), the Pontis Foundation (Slovakia), The Association for Democracy Assistance and Human Rights – Demas (Czech Republic), the Kosovar Civil Society Development Foundation – KCSF (Kosovo) and the Foundation for Development of Democratic Rights – Demnet (Hungary). The event was opened by Ms Tanja Hafner Ademi, Executive Director of BCSDN, who introduced…
Author: anja
On the 2nd of April 2014, at the Social educational centre in Banja Luka, the Humanitarian Organization Partner held a public presentation of their Policy Paper “Implementation of Disability Policy in B&H”. The project analyzed the implementation of the disability policy in B&H and determined in what extent the policy is used by the stakeholders in the country, what are the results of its implementation and whether the status of the persons with disabilities has changed as a result of implementation of the Policy. The Presentation was attended by representatives of several Ministries in the Government of Republic of Srpska,…
Hosted by its member KCSF, BCSDN 6th Annual Council Meeting took place on 17th April in Prishtina, Kosovo. The annual gathering of all members discussed the achievements of the past year in which the network has launched its finalized work on its own monitoring mechanism (the Monitoring Matrix) and conducted an 8 country monitoring exercise on the conditions in which civil society develops and operates. BCSDN grew internally (new offices, more staff and triple annual budget) and developed new partnerships externally by becoming members of CIVICUS Citizens’ Alliance, European Year of the Citizen and European Civil Society House. The traditional…
On the 16th April, during its 1st session of 2014, the BCSDN Board adopted a set of internal governance acts including Board Rules of procedure, Rulebook on organization and systematization of the Executive Office, Rulebook on working relations between employees and BCSDN, and Financial Policy. The aim of the acts is to strengthen and build on best practices in internal governance and management standards needed for a growing and professional network. All internal governance acts are available in the BCSDN Intranet.
BCSDN has launched a new website dedicated to monitoring the enabling environment for civil society development in the Western Balkans and Turkey. The new website is based on the Monitoring Matrix on Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development (CSDev) which is a tool that has been developed for measuring the health of the legal, regulatory, and financial environment in which civil society organisations (CSOs) operate. It has been the collective effort of CSO experts and practitioners from the BCSDN network of members and partners. The website is specifically focused on presenting a snapshot of the current state of the enabling…
The Center for Political Studies, one of the grantees of the Slovak and Balkan Public Policy Fund, on Thursday, 10th of April in Hotel Bosnia, Sarajevo, held a public presentation of their policy paper on “Strengthening the Capacity of the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina”. At this occasion, the Policy Paper was presented to the relevant international and national organizations and public institutions such as NATO, OSCE, PILPG, the Ombudsmen, KULT, etc. The Study focuses on the effectiveness of enforcement and implementation of the Constitutional Court of B&H and identifies and analyzes the reasons for non-compliance. The Study provides…
On the 9th of April, within the project “Study Visit: Europeans – Different but Similar”, organized by the Association for volunteerism “Volunteers Center Bitola”, BCSDN hosted 12 participants from different countries (Macedonia, Germany, Turkey, Latvia, Georgia and the Russian Federation) on a study visit. BCSDN’s executive director, Tanja Hafner Ademi, gave a short presentation on BCSDN’s vision, mission and goals, as well as the values of the organization and its structure. An insight was given into BCSDN’s partners and donors, and a short presentation on some of the projects was made by Ilina Nesik, Programme and Communication Manager, and Deniza…
From the 2nd till the 4th of April a regional conference was organized in Tara Serbia which gathered over 150 environmental civil society organizations from the Western Balkans but also Moldavia and Bielorussia. The achivments of the SENSE programme impemented by REC were presented and a focus was given on possibilities for CSOs to be more involved in the decsion making in their countries. In this context, Ilina Nesik presented an overview of current trends and development of civil- government dialogue in SEE countries according to the Monitoring Matrix by focusing on the preliminary regional findings and the national findings…
Within the framework of the Slovak and Balkan Public Policy Fund, on the 4th of April 2014 in Hotel New Star in Podgorica, The Center for Civic Freedoms, CEGAS, held a public presentation of their Policy Paper ‘’Advocating policy solution to effective legal remedies’’. The Paper looks at the implementation of judicial remedies (in particular the constitutional appeal) in practice and the competitive relations between the Constitutional Court of Montenegro and regular courts, primarily the Supreme Court. Key factors affecting the effectiveness, admissibility and accessibility of national judicial remedies are assessed in the Paper, as well as the inter-sections between…
On the 2nd of April, the first Serbian Country Monitoring Report of the enabling environment for civil society development was presented by BCSDN member and partner Civic Initiatives in the Belgrade Media Center to a group of around 50 representatives from CSOs, government, donors, and other stakeholders. The event featured the presentation of the methodology and goals of the report by Dejana Stevkovski, project coordinator, as well as the presentation of the 6 key findings and recommendations by Maja Stojanovic, Executive Director of Civic Initiative. Civic Initiatives findings were as follows: (1) need for consistent application of constitutional rights related…