Info Days 2011

Info Days presenting tenders for projects initiated by civil society organisations which are funded from the state budget were held on the 31^st March and 1^st April at the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport in Zagreb. The Info Days, organised by the Croatian Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs in cooperation with other public sector donors, were held for the second year running and gave the opportunity to ministries, government offices and the National Foundation for Civil Development to present their tenders to all interested NGOs.

 

Opening speeches at the Info Days were given by the Head of the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs Mr. Igor Vidačak, State Secretary at the Ministry of Science, Education and Sport Mr. Želimir Janjić, and the Deputy Prime Minister Mr. Slobodan Uzelac. All the speakers outlined that Croatia recognised the importance of cooperation with civil society organisations and has set-up a legal and institutional framework through which various support mechanisms for CSOs are made available. It is worth noting that 50% of revenue from lottery funds is directed to financing CSO programmes and projects, and that over the last three years more than 70 tenders per year were published by public bodies. Moreover, in 2010 some 500 million kuna were made available from the state budget, which despite the recession, is only 5.5% lower than in 2009. One of the areas on which a lot of focus was placed is capacity building of state administration bodies to evaluate the impact of CSO projects and programmes in the field, in accordance with national priorities. This was singled out as the weakest link in the entire process of financing civil society organisations.

 

The topics covered during the two day event were (please note that the presentations are in Croatian):