Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs was founded by the Regulation on Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs in 1998 with the aim of performing expert work in the domain of the Croatian Government with regards to creating conditions for cooperation and partnership with non-governmental, non-profit sector, especially with associations in the Republic of Croatia.
The Office has a wide scope of activities, from cooperation in creating and proposing new legislative frameworks for the activity of non-governmental, non-profit sector in the Republic of Croatia, monitoring the implementation of the National Strategy for the Creation of an Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development and measures of the Operational Implementation Plan for the Strategy to forming a programme, standards and recommendations for financing the activity of civil society organizations from the state budget and other public funds, as well as pre-accession and structural funds of the European Union.
According to the effective Regulation on Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs, the task of the Office is to coordinate the work of ministries, central state offices, Croatian Government offices and state administrative organizations, as well as administrative bodies at local level in connection with monitoring and improving the cooperation with the non-governmental, non-profit sector in the Republic of Croatia.
The Office implements projects supporting civil society development funded from the European Commission programmes and stipulated by the Central Finance and Contracting Unit of the Ministry of Finance. Except for the already initiated projects form the CARDS programme and those planned by PHARE and IPA, the Office shall also be responsible for the implementation of the Community programme Europe for Citizens, which will open additional possibilities for financing projects by civil society organizations in Croatia from 2008 onwards.
Under the Code of Good Practice, Standards and Benchmarks for the Allocation of Funding for Programmes and Projects of NGOs adopted by the Parliament in February 2007, the Office works on improving the standards for financing organizations' programmes from the state budget.
In the implementation of the mentioned tasks, the Office closely cooperates with the Council For the Development Of Civil Society to which it, at the same time, offers technical, administrative, professional and financial support in its work.