Enabling Environment for CSOs: Towards a Strategy of Civil Society in the Black Sea Region

The Romanian NGDO Platform – FOND organized between the 8th and 10th of December 2014, in Kyiv, Ukraine, the 7th edition of the Black Sea NGO Forum entitled “Enabling Environment for CSOs: Towards a Strategy of Civil Society in the Black Sea Region”, with the financial support of the European Commission, the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme Regional Centre for Europe and Central Asia, and CSO Partnership for Development Effectiveness – CPDE. This was the first time the Forum was organized in another country from the Black Sea Region, besides Romania.
 Nearly 150 participants attended the event, representing a wide range of national and international stakeholders from the Black Sea region – CSOs, regional and international organisations, regional and international donors, local authorities, academia, media.

This year’s edition launched a regional consultation with the purpose of starting the process of creating a Strategy of Civil Society in the Black Sea Region. In this respect, the Forum gathered valuable input and expertise from participants to identify the common needs and challenges for having an enabling environment in which civil society carries out its activity. Moreover, it explored potential solutions through concrete regional cooperation initiatives in key thematic sectors such as: democracy & human rights, environment, child protection or youth.
The results of the consultation will provide input to a future Strategy of Civil Society in the Black Sea Region, increasing in this way the regional ownership of the strategy and ensuring its responsiveness towards the needs and challenges of CSOs working in the region. Moreover, working together to find solutions to common problems in specific areas of interest will help CSOs develop more concrete regional initiatives and projects that respond to their priorities.

The agenda and concept of the Forum, as well as photos and presentations made during the event are available on the Black Sea NGO Forum’s website www.blackseango.org and Facebook page.

Photo: Participants of the Black Sea NGO Forum.

Information provided by Adriana Zaharia, FOND.