Full Coverage: South East Europe

28.02.2007 The Centre for Peace Studies sent an open letter to the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports, protesting the fact that 13-year old boy of Croatian-Liberian origin was expelled by his elementary school in Split on petition by the parents of the other students from his class. One of the reasons used to “justify” the request was that he was “Bantu”.

28.02.2007 “Novi list” daily reports that the Croatian Health Insurance Bureau decided to allocate about 13 percent higher support for annual needs for medicines to boys up to seven years of age than to girls of the same age group. According to the Bureau, the decision was based on actual data on use of medicines for 2006, which shows that boys simply use more medicines than girls.

27.02.2007 The Success Grants will help NGOs inform citizens about the good work they have done in the R. Macedonia. They will offer opportunities for NGOs to promote the impact of their individual organizations, thereby attracting new members and supporters, gaining legitimacy and influencing public opinion about the positive benefit of NGOs.

27.02.2007 Zelena Akcija environmental organization presented last week its paper 10 Measures to Secure Sustainable Traffic in the City of Zagreb.

27.02.2007 After the ruling of the International Court of Justice that Serbia can not be held responsible for the genocide that took place in B&H, the Youth Initiative for Human Rights demands from state officials to present all the facts as determined by the judgment and to not bring into question the victims of genocide.

26.02.2007 The GONG and the Croatian Journalist Association (HND) express their opposition to the draft-Law on Classification and Confidentiality of Information, which they claim will further close the state administration and other bodies with public competences to citizens overview and scrutiny.

23.02.2007 The Akcija Zdruzenska civic association, under the auspices of EU’s Campaign “2007 – Year of Equal Opportunities”, organized a forum on the topic On the Road to EU: Macedonian Gender Equality Policies.

23.02.2007 The Strategy promoted yesterday by the Department for Cooperation with Nongovernmental Organizations of the Government’s General Secretariat aims to improve the cooperation between the Government and the civil sector.

23.02.2007 The Transparency International Croatia (TIC) reports that the Draft-Law on Classification of Information, in its current form, may make the Law on the Right to Access Information totally obsolete and endanger the very progress of democracy in the country.

22.02.2007 In a blatant attempt to intimidate advocates of a peaceful solution to the Serbia-Kosovo conflict, a leading Serbian nationalist newspaper has called for the prosecution of the Women’s Peace Coalition, a joint initiative of women activists, for advocating for the independence of Kosovo.

22.02.2007 As a result of the training for use of OpenOffice.org, conducted by Metamorphosis Foundation and USAID’s project for successful decentralization - Make Decentralization Work, the Municipality of Makedonska Kamenica started to actively use OpenOffice.org on all computers in the municipal administration.

21.02.2007 Six years after the democratic changes, the non-profit sector in Serbia still waits for legislation that would regulate its work and its relations with the state. Although both Governments that ruled after 2000 announced a new law on citizens’ associations, and in spite of the fact that, by virtue of its acceptance for Council of Europe membership in April 2003 it accepted the obligation to adopt such a law within a year, the legal status of NGOs is still regulated by the old Yugoslav Law on Association of Citizens, Social and Political Organizations and the 1982 Serbian Law on Social Organizations and Citizens’ Associations.

21.02.2007 The citizens, through their activities, contribute to the more comprehensive social development and improved quality and standards of living. The development of the civil sector is of utmost importance for the fundamental, democratic and pluralistic values of a country, as well as to promote the civil awareness for a wider social engagement.

21.02.2007 Kosovo’s civil society was fairly well developed during the 1990s, as society struggled to resist against a decade of severe repression. The post-conflict period had brought about a different kind of struggle for civil society: wrestling to find its place in a newly created reality.

21.02.2007 In the 1990s, the official policies towards non-governmental organizations were marked with suspicion and mistrust. NGOs, especially the ones dealing with troublesome social and political issues and played the role of “watchdog” were considered agents of foreign political interests and, quite often, enemies of the state. One result of such a view was the very unfavourable institutional and legal environment for development of nongovernmental, non-profit sector.

21.02.2007 The history of the emergence and development of the so-called “third sector”, i.e. the mass appearance of non-governmental organizations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as promoters and carries of civil society values, makes for a rather short story. Before the 1992-1995 war, there were the social organizations that acted under the auspices of the state, primarily in the areas of sports and culture, while NGOs as we know them today developed in the second half of the 1990s.

21.02.2007 Over the past 15 years, the civil society in Albania has developed to levels that few people could expect, both in urban and rural areas of the country. With the passing of the law that granted the right to association in 1990, the first NGO was created. Since then, the Albanian civil society has made important strides ahead.

19.02.2007 The East West Institute announces public competition for grants under its GPKT Project (Gnjilane, Presevo, Kumanovo, Trgoviste Cross-Border cooperation). The deadline for application expires on March 15, 2007.

19.02.2007 “Felix” and “Roma Star” NGOs held a round-table discussion in Bitola, last week, to discuss the topic “Implementation of Strategy for the Roma Facilitates EU Integration”. In the discussion, they came to the conclusion that two memoranda of cooperation need to be signed as soon as possible, one with the local self-government and the other with Employment Agency.

19.02.2007 The Antifascist Action Novi Sad published an analysis of social-political and aesthetic discourse of new clerical and orthodox strategies “Criticism of Clericalization of Serbia”.