News and updates from BCSDN and the region
BCSDN held the launching event of the research papers prepared within the scope of the CSO – Private Sector engagement research, supported by the CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness (CPDE). During the event, the research partners, Albanian Center for Economic Research, European Policy Institute – Skopje (North Macedonia), and Trag Foundation (Serbia), presented their research
Read more →At the plenary session on 23 November, the European Parliament adopted the resolution on the new EU enlargement strategy, proposed by MP Tonino Picula from the Group of Socialists and Democrats. The resolution recognized the importance of enlargement policy in light of current geopolitical circumstances caused by the Russian aggression on Ukraine, as well as the diminishing
Read more →For a long time, BiH has been silent on the issues of children born of war and their mothers, survivors of wartime rape. Rape victims and their children typically cope alone, without additional support, with the devastating consequences of wartime rape, including psychological, physical, economic, and social problems. After years of neglect, the Brčko District
Read more →Amnesty International stated that the decision by Turkey’s highest appeals court to overturn baseless convictions of Amnesty Turkey’s Honorary Chair and three other human rights defenders is a huge relief, yet also highlights once more the politically motivated nature of the prosecutions. The ruling by the Court of Cassation on the convictions of Taner Kılıç,
Read more →Governments worldwide have been adopting surveillance measures for decades. But with the development of new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), they can deploy surveillance at unprecedented scale and speed and gain easy access to new sources of information, such as vast amounts of data collected by online platforms and services. The increased ability of authorities
Read more →CONCORD, together with its civil society partners worldwide, has produced several concrete inputs on civil society participation in EU international partnerships and external action decision-making wrapped in the publication titled “7 Practices for Civil Society Participation in EU Decision-Making”, aiming to encourage not only a shift to action towards meaningful, inclusive and safe civil society
Read more →The European Youth Forum and the European Trade Union Confederation, as well as activists and EU lawmakers, gathered in front of the European Parliament in Brussels on 10 November, International Interns Day, to demand more rights for trainees. The goal of the event was to highlight the value of young people’s work and to ask
Read more →The sixth edition of the Women’s Rights in Western Balkans Report (2022) serves as a benchmark for the six Western Balkan accession countries regarding women’s rights and influence for comparisons over time. The four areas included in this benchmark are women in politics, gender-based violence (GBV), security of women human rights defenders (WHRDs), and women
Read more →After the official Call for joining the Regional Accountability of Practice (RACoP), on 30th November, BCSDN held a launching event for all CSOs practitioners who expressed willingness to join the regional community. This initiative comes after a long process of assessing the state of civil society in the region and the ongoing adverse trends, furthering
Read more →Accountable Now has announced two upcoming conversations on how organizations can make a stronger impact in the next year. The Dynamic Accountability Dialogue #2: Accountable Future, happening on 6 December, aims to identify and brainstorm the accountability needs and challenges for organizations in 2023. Please find more information here. Additionally, they are holding an Open House on 8
Read more →Calls for audits to expose and mitigate harms related to algorithmic decision systems are proliferating and audit provisions are coming into force, notably in the EU’s Digital Services Act. In response to these growing concerns, research organizations working on technology accountability have called for ethics and/or human rights auditing of algorithms, and the artificial intelligence
Read more →The decision for a compensation fund (“Loss & Damage”) made at the COP`27 in Sharm El Sheik represents a paradigm shift in international climate diplomacy. For the first time, the crisis issue of climate has been recognized as a justice issue at this top international level. By achieving this discursive shift, the Global South and
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