Meeting CEE Trust goals

• The Trust in the CR:

• Impacts and Achievements
  • Overall impacts
  • Meeting CEE Trust goals
• Program Map
• Program Components
  • Creating Favorable Environment for NGOs
  • Creating Favorable Environment for Advocacy and Public Policy
  • Institutional Support for NGOs
  • Knowledge Fund
  • Consultants’ Guild
  • Strenghtening Regional Foundations
  • Model Community and Regional Projects
  • Ensuring Access to the EU funding
  • Increasing Support from the Private Sector
  • Increasing Support from Individuals
• Program In Spotlight
  • CEET in facts and figures
  • CEET in the eyes of grantees
  • CEET in stories
  • CEET in pics
• Annotated Summary of Grants( pdf 153 kB)

• Enabling Environment
• NGO capacity
• Sustainability

Enabling Environment

The CEE Trust Objective: To support legal, fiscal and political environments in which civil societies can flourish

Background:

The CEE Trust program came just in the time of crucial legislative and tax changes that would have long-lasting impact on civil society in the Czech Republic. The newly drafted Civil Code will set a brand new legal framework for civic initiatives of all types, including all NGO legal entities. Tax reform was a hot topic during the parliamentary elections in 2006. At the same time, the political situation and climate resulting from the EU accession increased the tendencies of politicians to strengthen the role of the State and minimize public participation in the decision-making processes. (Such tendency was markedly reflected in the recent amendments of certain legal acts, such as the Administrative Procedures Code.) In that critical time, the CEE Trust provided Czech NGOs with resources to respond to the emerging challenges.

On the other hand, the need to intensively work on the legal framework for civic initiatives, tax issues and the public benefit status caught the Czech NGO sector unprepared. It soon became obvious that NGOs, who could systematically pay attention to such cross-over issues, were desperately lacking. Even the most developed Czech NGOs lacked both the human and financial resources to concentrate on complex issues such as the Civil Code. There was neither a NGO nor a network that could take the lead to initiate, stimulate and facilitate a dialogue with the public administration, or even among the NGOs themselves.

At the same time, the weak expert background - especially the non-existence of think tanks and/or research centers paying ongoing attention to NGO issues that would gather and develop valid data, analyses and/or comparative studies about the NGO sector at large - proved to be a serious drawback that undermined the sector´s capacity to create and propose sound alternatives to the legislative drafts.

Program response:

The CEE Trust program put primary significance on sustaining and developing the main values introduced by Western donors after the fall of the totalitarian regime: emphasis on individual rights and responsibilities accompanied by an active approach to public life community development development of cross-sectoral partnerships; enabling environment that allows for public participation in decision-making andthe need for promoting philanthropy.

• Due to the collaborative efforts of VIA and its grantees, Czech NGOs successfully became involved in the legislative process of drafting the NGO chapters of the new Civil Code. The comments were developed through a highly participatory process that included the broad NGO community and by a newly established working group of NGO experts that currently monitors and advises the group drafting the Code. The advanced draft of the Civil Code incorporated over 100 NGO-initiated recommendations; this highlights the potentials of such a joint action plan based on focused collaboration between experts in the field, academicians and state officials. Although the legislative process regarding the Civil Code and public benefit status is far from being completed, the groundwork for NGO involvement have been laid. The expert basis and key contacts have been established and the already raised interest and commitment ensures that the crucial legislative changes will not be developed unnoticed by NGOs.
• A solid background was developed for dealing with the issues of 1% legislation and the public benefit status. Discussions that were held on these subjects, as well as numerous articles, helped to generate a variety of arguments revealing the pros and cons of various approaches. In parallel, the expert work done within the supported projects helped to gather and develop relevant expert materials - analyses, studies and model examples from other countries. In the case of the public benefit status, alternative scenarios were produced. This all represents a sound basis for further work on these issues that will go beyond the scope of the CEE Trust program.
• Advocacy NGOs continued to voice public interests in their specific agendas, and implemented projects to eliminate undemocratic and discriminatory provisions from the drafted legislation, to fight corruption, to support the rights of citizens and the marginalized in the decision-making procedures and to help secure access to justice.
• Through the support of think tanks, platforms for independent thinking and NGO research were established. The Centre for Nonprofit Sector Research (CVNS) and The Independent Think Tank for the NGO Sector and Civil Society Issues (NETT) have demonstrated their value through the projects accomplished to date, earning recognition from other social sectors.

back to the headline