In March 2006, aiming to allot increased institutional capacities for provision of services to NGOs, the NGO Division was elevated to the Department for NGO Registration and Liaison. The department of NGO Registration and Liaison is a special governmental unit within the Ministry of Public Administration which administers policies related to registration and cooperation with NGOs. The department is organized in two divisions: Division of registration of NGOs, which deals with NGO applications for registering, reviews the applications for registering and the NGOs requests for Public benefit status; and the Division on reporting and monitoring of NGOs which receives and reviews the annual reports including the financial part. This Department is responsible for dealing only with registered NGOs. It is the only governmental body responsible to communicate and liaison with NGOs in their daily work, even though the liaison component of this Department still remains not functional.

In addition to this, the Office for Good Governance within the Prime Minister office has the mandate to ensure the implementation of the good governance principles within the government, also through involving the civil society in the government activities. In preparing the Memorandum of Understanding with the CiviKos platform, this office was the leading unit from the government side. Yet, except participation in civil society activities and vice-versa, this office does not have any formal mechanism for civil society involvement in government activities. No “contact points” for civil society exist in any of the Ministries, Municipalities or Parliament.

Even though CSOs were among the initiators of these formal initiatives and they actively participated in the process, they couldn’t continue the same level of engagement in the implementation phase. The signature of these documents was perceived as the final aim of their involvement, rather than the beginning of a dialogue and cooperation in order to result with advanced mechanisms and structures for a substantial role in the society in general.