At the invitation of the Croatian Government office for NGOs, BCSDN supported by ECNL presented the draft monitoring matrix on enabling environment for CSDev to 15 representatives of 7 countries’ mechanisms or bodies dealing with CSDev on 26th September on the margins of the Zadar conference. The meeting was organized with the aim to established mechanisms for exchange of best practice and cooperation between Governmental bodies that deal with CSOs on which Government representatives agreed to organized regular regional exchange meetings and exchange tools. As a further development, the representative of the Montenegrin Government informed the meeting that their Government is planning to launch an multi-later initiative to Governments in the region to sign a Memorandum of Cooperation in the area of civil society development initiated by the TACSO Montenegro office. In the second part of the meeting, the matrix was presented at the level of defined areas, principles and standards with the aim to gather feedback from Government representatives on financial, human, expert and time-cost its implementation will entail for individual Government.
The matrix was accepted with positive reactions (save of skepticism on the part of Turkish representatives) of presenting a framework for the work of this institution, helping in building awareness what is needed and providing for a direction to their work. It was suggested in the discussion that further consultation with Governments and CSOs is needed to allow more them for concrete feedback and some Governments are interested in using it as a self-assessment mechanism. BCSDN also presented a webplatform being developed as an accompanying mechanism to strengthen Government peer-to-peer communication and exchange on sectoral (matrix) issues. The initial design was approved and is to be further discussed in November at the TACSO Keeping the Momentum conference. Development of the matrix is part of the “Cross-Sector Regional Partnership for Enabling Legal Environment for CSDev” project supported by ICNL, ECNL and USAID under the Legal Innovation Fund.