As part of our efforts to provide and promote a more enabling civil society environment, and to inform our audience regularly and effectively about recent civil society developments in the region, we present our periodical civil society updates. Divided into three areas based on our flagship tool, the Monitoring Matrix, our April 2024 report highlights ongoing challenges and progress in areas in basic freedoms, financial sustainability, and government-CSO relations.
In this edition, we find that:
- Basic Freedom Challenges Persist: Delays in legal reforms impacting civil society, rising state interference, and increased obstacles to freedom of expression are noted across the Western Balkans.
- Financial Viability Hurdles: CSOs face regulatory and bureaucratic challenges in Albania and Montenegro, hindering VAT exemptions and operational sustainability.
- CSO-Government Cooperation Struggles: A lack of meaningful collaboration hampers progress in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. Civil society voices discontent over inactive Councils for cooperation among governments and civil society and a lack of substantive communication.
Explore the full update for comprehensive insights.