BCSDN in cooperation with the European Center for Non-for-profit Law (ECNL) and its member EHO organized a regional workshop on State funding for CSOs on 13-14 November in Novi Sad, Serbia as part the EU and BTD funded “Balkan Civil Society Acquis” project. The workshop attended by 38 representatives of CSOs and relevant state institutions from 13 countries, was aimed to map existing frameworks for state financing in the Balkan countries, to exchange experiences and to share European tendencies and good practices. Moreover, the goal of the workshop was to identify key bottlenecks in Enlargement countries and steps to overcome, as part of the advocacy plans for 2014 for increasing state funding and improving regulatory practices in the represented countries.
The workshop was organized in 7 panels. On the first panel the preliminary results of the Monitoring Matrix were presented on the national frameworks for CSOs’ financial sustainability in 8 Enlargement countries. The second panel was devoted to different European trends and examples of state funding. Within the third panel the participants were introduced with the public funding cycle and good regulatory practices in distribution of public funds on the case study of Serbia. The forth panel covered the basics of the procurement process and the mechanisms to monitor procurement. Within the fifth panel models for using lottery proceeds as source for funding of CSOs were presented. The sixth panel focused on principle of accountability in public funding. The seventh and last panel was a working and wrap-up session, in which participants were grouped to identify the main bottlenecks and discuss next steps that should be taken to increase the sustainability of CSOs in individual countries and the region.
From the two day discussions several conclusions and recommendations were driven. From the countries in the region, Croatia is by far the most advanced in the national set up supporting the CSO’s financial viability while the other countries more or less still lag in basic institutional framework. Among the common issues presented were: the lack or Strategy for support and cooperation with CSOs, lack of developed mechanisms for support for social dialogue and inclusive practices, lack of funds and mechanisms for co-financing, lack of non-financial support, and still insufficient transparency in state funding.
Practical examples of European practices were given for existent mechanisms of state funding in different countries for enhancing the financial viability of CSO’s (designation of % of personal tax income, money return from donations, special exemptions for organization of public benefit, funds from lotteries proceeds etc.), and concrete applicable recommendations in regards to improving the programing, transparency and accountability in state funding and in public procurement and for increasing the financial sustainability of the CSO.
You can read the full report here, along with the presentations by the individual speakers.