News and updates from BCSDN and the region
The Department for Cooperation with Non-Governmental Organizations of the General Secretariat is organizing consultative meetings with the civil society sector regarding its Draft Strategy of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia for Cooperation with and Development of the Civil Sector, including the Action Plan 2018-2020. The consultations will be held in Skopje on April
Read more →The Online Platform for public consultations is a very important, although not the only tool for implementing the minimum standards for public consultations. Functional as of February 2017, this platform has enabled publishing of hundreds of different documents for public consultation. However, it is still halfway to fulfill its goal. The Kosovar Civil Society Foundation
Read more →Civic engagement, including that by CSOs, in governance is the bedrock of democracy. An informed and active citizenry, particularly skilled and engaged CSOs, have the potential power to strengthen public policies, promote the interests of the people, and hold elected officials accountable. CSOs — often in collaboration with government and the international community — have
Read more →In times when the local trends of violations to civic space are in fact global ones, across the world CSOs can do a lot to promote the civic space – from exchanging experiences, showing solidarity and building broad coalitions, to using new technologies and using international leverage. BCSDN developed a paper based on the discussions
Read more →A new CONCORD paper examines civil society at the heart of democracy and sustainable development and looks at the key components of civic space which are necessary to enable an environment where civil society can peruse and express basic rights. Civil society organisations can play an important facilitating role to make the voices of people
Read more →This Toolkit, co-authored by NED’s World Movement for Democracy and ICNL, compiles the experiences of those who have engaged in legal reform initiatives in over dozens countries worldwide and providews tips, tools, and strategies that organizations and activists around the world can consider as they plan their efforts to reform legal frameworks for civil society.
Read more →A new CONCORD Europe paper presents the understanding of CONCORD on an enabling environment for civil society and the threats to democratic space globally. It examines civil society at the heart of democracy and sustainable development and looks at the key components of civic space which are necessary to enable an environment where civil society
Read more →The famous Tahrir Square in Egypt looked different at the time of the Arab Spring – up until the new military government ringed its central part with an iron fence. A similar transformation happened with the Pearl roundabout in the capital of Bahrain where demonstrators used to gather – it was turned into a traffic
Read more →Social enterprise and social entrepreneurship (SEE)—a business-inspired approach to solving social problems—has exploded across the United States and the world in the last decade. It has entrenched itself within a broad spectrum of fields, from economic development and urban planning to health and education policy, and turned into an industry, funded by $1.6 billion in
Read more →The government’s approval of the Draft Law on Freedom of Association NGOs in December 2017 is an important step towards empowerment of the civil society and the development of democracy in Kosovo. To be implemented, the draft law has to be adopted by the Kosovo Assembly, a process whose delivery is hard to predict due
Read more →As journalists and activist groups are coming under mounting pressure from governments around the world, evidence sheds new light on the vital importance of CSOs and independent media in anti-corruption efforts. Yet, CSOs working on governance and human rights issues are subject to ever-greater restrictions on their operations, while attacks on journalists are on the
Read more →A recent publication by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) provides an analysis of the main challenges faced by CSOs of the trends and drivers of change and of the future prospects for relations between policy-makers at the national and European level and CSOs. It was developed with the purpose of examining what might
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