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Strengthening the triangle CSOs-National Governments-European Commission
Reinforcing the Europe-wide civil society and building partnerships

International conference
19-20 October 2009
Venue: IMPACT Centre, Zadar, Croatia

European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) and National Foundation for Civil Society Development (NFCSD) are glad to announce the international conference entitled “Strengthening the triangle CSOs-National Governments-European Commission”. This event took place in Zadar, Croatia on the 19 and 20 of October 2009.

This event gathered representatives of civil society from the EU and neighbouring countries, donors active in the region as well as high officials from the EU institutions and national governments.

Apart from taking advantage of this event for benchmarking progress made in each country in the region in terms of civil dialogue and sustainable development of the civil society sector, our aim was to announce some new and important initiatives that will shape civil society environment in the region in 2010.

Firstly, the experts that led the EC programme “Capacity building of Civil Society in IPA countries” came to present the programme and the technical offices which they will be setting up by the end of the year. Those in attendance had the opportunity to ask questions about all the aspects of a programme that will considerably affect the CSO scene in the Western Balkans by its magnitude and ambition.

Secondly, the opening of the Regional CSO representation office was officially announced to the international audience and the Head of Office explained the mission of this office and its priorities for 2010. At first an initiative of the NFCSD, the idea of a representation office has quickly caught the interest of the CSO actors in the region who have agreed to back the office and help in setting it up.

Thirdly, the Advocacy campaign for civil society in the Western Balkans of ECAS is continuing in 2009 and 2010. The impact of the Ljubljana declaration has been significant and it is our intention to continue advocating for the establishment of sustainable tripartite civil dialogue and the development of CSOs in the region. Together with European Movement International and local partners we intend to organise a series of national events which will bring around the table representatives of CSOs, national governments and the European Commission to discuss strategies to establish a regular dialogue, transparent funding and inclusion of CSOs into policy-making in each national context. We will end this series of “national dialogues” with a closing event in Turkey at the end of 2010.

Finally, we offered our participants the chance to take part in debates which centered around the following three themes:

The Impact of the financial crisis and the economic downturn on civil society organisations;
Institutional answers to financial and structural challenges facing CSO development and
EC programmes in the region focusing on CSO development, namely the programme “Capacity building of Civil Society in IPA countries”.

Thank you for your participation!
If you missed the conference, or would like to review some of the topics covered, please see the Conference Follow Up Materials section below.

Conference Programme (download here )