Cooperation between government and civil society in Montenegro rests on a single Government Office for Cooperation with CSOs and a network of liaison officers in ministries and other central government institutions. The system is still in a developing stage but an inter‐ministerial working group, with the close cooperation and often guidance of the coalition of CSOs – By Cooperation towards the Goal, has succeeded in publishing a Strategy and Action Plan for Cooperation between Government and CSOs, which was adopted by Parliament in January 2009.
The Office for Cooperation was established as off 2007 on the basis of a political mandate provided in 2006 by a Government Decree, the first of this kind, setting out a loose agenda for improving the historically poor government – civil society relations by the means of such an office. The Office’s purpose is to work directly with CSOs to develop mutual cooperation and coordination, to promote the transparency of the work of both government and CSOs, to educate government departments in civil society and also to coordinate and network state organs for improved coordination with CSOs.
While CSOs recognize that the Office has made serious efforts to cooperate with civil society, it does not possess the capacity or authority to carry out entirely its duties. The Office only employs two people, the Head of the Office and an operations officer responsible to General Secretariat of the Government. The Office does not have a clear and specifically allocated budget and its competence to coordinate the officers in public administration bodies that are liaising with CSOs has not been clearly defined. Also, being situated in the Government General Secretariat, it lacks the authority to act independently. As things stand at the present, the long‐term sustainability and effectiveness of the Office is severely compromised.
The system of networking and coordination through liaison officers in the public administration is also functioning imperfectly. Liaison officers change their positions frequently, causing confusion in communication with CSOs. Newly appointed liaison officers often have poor understanding of civil society and lack experience of working with CSOs, and so require capacity building and adequate time to gain proficiency.
The process of the implementation of Strategy for Cooperation between Government and CSOs is developing slowly. Even though it was planned for 2009, the process of establishing Council for Cooperation between Government and CSOs started in February this year. The Government Office for Cooperation with CSOs prepared a model of Decision on establishing the Council and sent it to Coalition of NGOs By cooperation towards the goal. After the Coalition has submitted its suggestions, Decision entered into procedure and was adopted by the Government in April 2010. The Decision on forming the Council is adopted, and the next step will be implementing the procedure of members appointing.