News and updates from BCSDN and the region
On July 21st, 2016, at the EU Info Center Skopje, Macedonia, the Embassy of Poland in Macedonia organized an informative session about funding opportunities for regional cooperation projects in the Western Balkans. The aim of the session was to pinpoint to the reforms that are to be introduced within the International Visegrad Fund, as well
Read more →The Global Standard CSO Accountability Local Stakeholder Meetings took place on the 19th of July in the Human Rights House in Belgrade, Serbia. It was organized by BCSDN and the INGO Accountability Charter in the scope of the Global Standard for CSO Accountability project and was hosted by Civic Initiatives. The Global Standard for CSO Accountability steering group meeting was held the
Read more →Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals is a monumental task. There is no country in the world where all people have equal opportunities to fulfill their aspirations. Every country has poverty and inequalities to address. Every country has environmental problems to remedy,” the Deputy Secretary-General said at the opening of a three-day ministerial meeting of the
Read more →Activities of civil society organizations are increasingly restricted in the name of security and counter-terrorism. ICNL/ECNL have tracked at least 25 legal initiatives over the past 2 years that affect civic space using the counter-terrorism financing and anti-money laundering pretext. These impose burdens on civil society operations by diverting resources to administrative tasks, instead of
Read more →On July 20th, 2016, the Office for Cooperation with Non-Governmental Organizations in Macedonia published the List of candidates according to the number of votes for members of the Council for Cooperation between the Government and Civil Society. During the voting procedure, a total of 192 CSOs submitted their votes, of which 128 were valid, 54
Read more →CONCORD has shared a new survey on EU delegations’ engagement with civil society, which aims to assess the quality of the relationship between civil society organizations and EU Delegations. More specifically, it looks at how EU Delegations are supporting an enabling environment for civil society at field level (for example by fostering CSOs’ participation in
Read more →UN Special Rapporteur Maina Kiai calls upon international financial institutions to counter the global trend of closing civil society space by promoting more community participation in their activities.His call comes roughly one year since the United Nations set the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an ambitious blueprint for governments and financiers to use their political power
Read more →The face of development has changed, with diverse stakeholders involved – and implicated – in what are more and more seen as global and interlinked concerns. At the same time, there is an urgent need to mobilize unprecedented resources to achieve the ambitious Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The private sector can be a powerful promotor
Read more →Why bother with aid agencies? To “do good” all you need is a phone and Google Maps. Users choose a borrower and say how much they want to lend. A network of local field partners, such as microfinance institutions (MFIs) or non-profits, deal with making the loans. When the borrowers repay, the money lands back
Read more →With the MAXCAP project officially coming to its end in April 2016, BCSDN collected and summarized the main working papers in an overview of all research related to EU Enlargement process in the Western Balkans and Turkey. The publication contains also the policy briefs that aim to formulate specific policy recommendations for practitioners on the
Read more →The Third Sector Impact released its 10th Working Paper “Assessing the Macro Socio-Economic Impact of the Third Sector in Europe”. In it, TSI coordinator Bernard Enjolras proposes a theoretical model for conceiving how the development of the third sector at the aggregated level may produce positive impacts for society by analyzing available data in order
Read more →A collaborative research project by the Public Interest Registry and Nonprofit Tech for Good, the 2016 Global NGO Online Technology Report is an inaugural effort to gain a better understanding of how non-governmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide use online technology to communicate with their supporters and donors. Over the last two decades the NGO sector has
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