Citizens Appeal to the Croatian Government to Preserve the Croatian Model for Support to Civil Society Development

On 9th May, more than 500 civil society activists came to St. Mark’s Square in Zagreb to urge the government to preserve the Croatian model for support to civil society development. Representatives of the “For Strong Civil Society!” initiative emphasized that the aim of the massive gathering is to attack the public institutions and the mechanisms for cooperation with civil society in Croatia. The Appeal  – signed by 435 CSOs – has been written on the occasion of the adoption of the Decision of the Government related to the redistribution of financial resources within the budget line for income from games of chance for 2016. The co-signatories urge the Government to take into consideration the fact that the institutional model for civil society financing has been a good example and a role model that is recognized in the transition countries in the neighborhood, and beyond, as well as the important role of the Office for CSOs of the Croatian Government, the National Foundation for Development of Civil Society and the Council for Development of Civil Society. More so, they noted that, in the last ten years, Croatia has been working systematically to improve the transparency of the allocation of public funds to organizations applying the model of cooperation between decision-makers and CSOs, and therefore the lump reduction of the funding in any program area without assessing their contribution, will erode the cross-sector cooperation and synergy. More information is available here.
Source: TV N1