News and updates from BCSDN and the region
Luben Panov, Senior Program Advisor at the European Center for Nonprofit Law (ECNL), highlights how governments are using transparency measures to restrict the work of CSOs. This includes placing limitations on the fundraising of foreign funds. This approach falsely equates foreign funding with foreign influence, undermining the legitimacy of CSOs. Such restrictions have been seen
Read more →BCSDN’s input on the IPA III Multi-Country Action Document 2024, submitted to TACSO on 11 July as part of the open consultations, emphasizes the significance of meaningfully consulting CSOs in these processes. We bring attention to the limitations of the current consultation process and urge EU for inclusive, structured, and effective collaboration, and the need
Read more →BCSDN successfully completed its strategic revisioning process. In a meeting in Podgorica, BCSDN members and Executive Office team redefined the network’s goals, mission, and vision. These revisions aim to enhance BCSDN advocacy role in providing more enabling civil society environment in the Balkans. Through dynamic dialogue, BCSDN member representatives agreed on priorities for the next
Read more →CPDE, together with Action for Sustainable Development (A4SD), Forus, Coalition 2030, Zambia Council for Social Development, Accion Chile, Center for Human Rights and Development Mongolia, and the governments of Ireland, Zambia, Switzerland, Chile, and Mongolia, held a side-event to the UN HLPF titled “Inclusive Partnerships for a Resilient Recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic: Leaving No
Read more →Agenda 2030 has suffered a significant setback. Its engine, civil society, is being severely limited in its ability to affect positive change. Civil society’s role is vital, as it helps drive the action, cooperation, and innovation to realize the SDGs. The Global Goals are entering their most important development phase, at the halfway point to
Read more →Ahead of the 2024 EU elections, a broad coalition of CSOs led by Civil Society Europe and Social Platform have launched a campaign for better civic space and civil dialogue all over Europe. The Civil Society for EU campaign published its manifesto, outlining its key demands for a Civil Society Strategy and a Civil Dialogue
Read more →On 27 and 28 June, in Haarlem, BCSDN representatives participated in a workshop for the Global Expert Hub on AML/CFT workshop, titled “Unpacking the Tech-Security Drives, Protecting Civic Space“, organized by ECNL. Around 40 CSO representatives and experts on AML/ CTF worldwide participated in the workshop, learning and discussing issues such as emerging technologies, fintech,
Read more →Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering body MONEYVAL calls on North Macedonia’s authorities to further strengthen measures to combat money laundering (ML), financing of terrorism (FT), and financing of proliferation (FP), in particular in the investigation and prosecution fields. Moneyval further recommends authorities to step up their efforts to implement adequately beneficial ownership standards. Read more
Read more →The Croatian Journalists’ Association, HND, has strongly condemned the draft media law, noting that it represented unprecedented state interference in journalistic freedoms and in journalistic self-regulation. The draft law proposed by the Culture and Media Ministry was not previously agreed on within the working group of which journalists were members. They also condemned a proposal
Read more →At the Press Day in Turkey, on 24 July, journalists’ unions and media organizations called on the Turkish government to end pressures, violence, censorship, and imprisonment of journalists and the alleged criminalization of the journalistic profession. The Turkish press council has stated that news can be treated as ‘terrorism’ and a journalist as a ‘terrorist’.
Read more →The Macedonian Journalists’ Association (AJM) is demanding an urgent response to the explicit threats made to journalist Rita Behadini at her announcement regarding the public stance by Saraj’s social network Facebook. In solidarity with the Association of Journalists of Macedonia (AJM), the gender equality platform demands an urgent response by strongly condemning hate speech and
Read more →The first draft of the revised CHS aims to strengthen the commitments aid actors make to people facing crises and vulnerability. Feedback on this draft will help make aid more accountable and people centered. This is an important milestone for the Core Humanitarian Standard (CHS), which is being revised based on learnings from the past
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