News and updates from BCSDN and the region
The Policy Brief produced by the European Policy Center Belgrade and Think for Europe Network aims to shed light on an insufficiently enabling, often even disabling, environment for the work of civil society organizations (CSOs) from the region. It does so by providing a comparative overview of CSOs involvement in the policymaking in different countries
Read more →At the London Summit of the Berlin Process that took place from 9-10 July 2018, representatives of the Civil Society Forum of the Western Balkans (CSF) presented 4 recommendations for the future of the Berlin Process: “additional progress” in rule of law to be included on top of the existing four goals of the Berlin
Read more →The Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC) together with BCSDN organized a conference on July 5th in Skopje “The United Nation Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), the integrity, transparency and the anticorruption preventive policies”. The conference was aimed to raise awareness and build capacities and knowledge among CSOs (but also institutions) to ensure better CSO involvement
Read more →The U.S. Embassy in Skopje seeks media program proposals that promote a strong, free and independent to develop and implement a series of workshops for young journalists from the Republic of Macedonia. The call is open to U.S. and local non-profit/non-governmental organizations and educational institutions. The approximate total funding for this call is USD 75,000.
Read more →The European Citizenship Awards 2018 is a joint initiative between the European Civic Forum and Volonteurope, two European networks which promote active citizenship and recognition of the importance of social justice to the cohesion of communities across Europe. The Awards celebrate the democratic and civic engagement of individuals, organisations, citizens’ groups and social enterprises. They
Read more →The Council of Europe’s Democratic Governance Department calls on for original design ideas for a logo to accompany their efforts for implementing the recent Committee of Ministers Guidelines for civil participation in political decision-making. Supporters of participatory democracy and to anyone with fresh ideas are invited to submit a proposal for a logo that would
Read more →The U.S. publishes an enormous amount of data on foreign assistance—including detailed information on budgets, spending, and results—as well as what could be considered electronic libraries of documents on projects, evaluations, and contracts. Just finding all the information—scattered across a multitude of websites—can be daunting. That task is made all the more difficult when different
Read more →#LiftUpPhilanthropy is a global and open campaign to raise the strategic importance and value of the development of philanthropy. It aims to raise funders’ awareness of the importance of investing in the support ecosystem, or infrastructure, that allows philanthropy to develop in growth, quality and diversity. Funders interested in the development of the field, philanthropy
Read more →Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TUSEV) published the Monitoring Matrix on Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development Turkey Country Report 2017, prepared in line with the Monitoring Matrix methodology. Developed under the Monitoring Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development Project coordinated by Balkan Civil Society Development Network (BCSDN) through 2012 and 2016, the Monitoring Matrix
Read more →Access Info Europe and MANS called on the Montenegrin government to undo its 2017 amendments to Law on Free Access to Information (originally adopted in 2006) in order to bring it back into line with international standards. In an analysis of the Law, Access Info and MANS signaled that a particular concern is Article 1,
Read more →Publish What You Fund has published the 2018 Aid Transparency Index, the only independent measure of aid transparency among the world’s major development agencies, which this year assessing 45 agencies. The 2018 results show overall positive improvements, with 93% of the Index organisations now publishing in the International Aid Transparency Initiative (IATI) Standard, but still,
Read more →The survey, based on interviews and comments from organisations and activists, shows a general confidence of CSOs in the European Economic Area in the freedom of association, assembly and of expression which is particularly striking if compared to candidate countries in the European neighborhood. However, there is a widespread perception of lack of progress and
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