At its session held on 8 May 2008, the Government of the Republic of Croatia adopted the Report on the Implementation of the Operational Implementation Plan of the National Strategy for the Creation of Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development from 2007 to 2011 in the period between 1 February 2007 and 1 February 2008, as well as the Report on Allocation of Financial Supports for Projects and Programs of Civil Society Organizations in 2007.
Given its role of the coordinator of the state administrative bodies in the field of the co-operation with nongovernmental, non-profit sector, the Government Office for Co-operation with NGOs is in charge of monitoring the implementation of the measures of the Operational Plan of the Strategy. Every year, the Office is obliged to prepare annual reports for the Croatian Government and to this end it had launched in July 2007 a co-operation with institutions competent for implementation of the Operational Plan, which in turn prepared their reports. First reports on the implementation are compiled for the period from January to June 2007 with a view to obtain a preliminary overview of the realization of the Operational Plan that was in turn presented to the Council for Civil Society Development in July 2007. On the basis of the second round of reports on the implementation of the measures, one prepared a draft of the annual report which was adopted at the Council’s session along with the set of proposals incorporated in the final version.
In the reporting period from 1 February 2007 to 1 February 2008, the Operational Plan foresees the implementation of 53 measures within 11 thematic chapters and sub-chapters. The quantity as well as the scope of the measures within individual chapter is not evenly distributed. It is noteworthy that within the reporting period the implementation of 34 measures was either launched or in some cases even completed, which indicates that the final implementation covered 64% of all measures foreseen for the year 2007 and January 2008.
The first annual report on implementation of the measures of the Operational Plan contains data on 53 measures, implemented by various state administrative bodies in the following areas:
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participation of citizens in making of public policy
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education for democratic citizenship and human rights
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building of legal and institutional framework for supporting civil society
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improvement of the system of financing of civil society organizations
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regional development
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development of volunteerism, philanthropy and funding activities
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civil society development in international context, particularly in the light of Croatian accession to the EU.
As for the Report on the Allocation of Financial Support for Projects and Programs of Civil Society Organizations in 2007, adopted by the Croatian Government, it consists of three parts. The first part contains the overview of the allocated financial support for civil society organizations on the national level. The data was analyzed according to the provider of financial support, mode of allocation of the support as well as the areas and subcategories of financing. Furthermore, it shows the results of a survey that are related to the call for proposals for financing of projects and programs of civil society organizations. The second part of the report presents the data on the county level, while the third part contains the overview of the allocated funds on the city level.
The Report shows that 470.192.095,08 kn were allocated from the State Budget in 2007 which is 31,59% more compared to the year before. Along with a thorough analysis of the support allocated by the institutions – providers of financial support, the Report also contains a detailed overview of the results of a research on the degree of inter-institutional synchronization of procedures of implementation of the calls for proposals for allocation of financial support.
The data received by the counties and the cities show that the county budgets allocated 337.911.036,03 kn, whereas the city budgets allocated 439.330.869,58 kn.
The data which the Office has collected for the purpose of this Report show that the national, county and city budgets allocated altogether 1.247.434.000,69 kn for projects and programs of civil society organizations.
Just as during the last three years, the thorough data about all individual supports allocated from the national, county and city budgets will be soon available in the public database on the Office’s website. The database will include information on the name of the organization, the title and the manager of individual projects as well as the amount of the allocated support. Moreover, the Report will be printed and distributed to the interested public, which is an additional contribution to the transparency of reporting on the allocated financial supports for projects and programs of civil society organizations.