Support to the Regional Development of the Civil Society in the Republic of Croatia – New Mechanisms of Coordination

According to the measures of the National Strategy for the Creation of an Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development 2012 – 2016 and to the Activity 2.2. – Establishing the Mechanisms for Coordination between Supporting Structures for the Unified Civil Society Development on a Regional Level, the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs has organized a meeting “Support to the Regional Development of the Civil Society in the Republic of Croatia”.

Meeting with relevant stakeholders was held on February 13th in the Hotel Dubrovnik in Zagreb. Annual public procurement plan for financing of projects and programmes of CSOs in the year 2014 has been presented along with the role of regional supporting centres and their associating organizations, which operate in all Croatian counties, and models of ensuring uniform participation of all counties in the programmes and projects financed by the EU or State budget respecting thereby needs on the regional and local level. Not only that participants have been familiarized with the Annual public procurement plan, public calls and other sources of funding for projects and programmes, but they also gained insight into structures (i.e. public administration bodies) responsible for implementation of Calls for proposals, publishing of relevant tenders, tender values, number of planned contracts within each Call and deadlines for submission of proposals.

Role of five Regional Networks that are implementing regional development and capacity building programmes for CSOs and which provide free of charge information and counselling services have been presented as well. Participants were familiarized with an extended (new) role of five Regional Networks as well as with possibilities that are provided by CSOs which are recognized as centres of knowledge (GONG, Croatian Youth Network, Human Rights House, NGO Most, Alliance of NGOs Klubtura, Friends of the Earth Croatia, Green Network of Activist Groups). Altogether 70 participants from various NGOs, Development Agencies, Foundations for Local Community Development and Counties and Cities have been present at the meeting. They expressed their support to linking of existing resources in order to achieve more efficient synergy of all stakeholders on local and regional level for better recognition of citizens' needs and further development of local communities.