The important turning point for the civil sector in Serbia came with the end of Milosevic’s regime in 2000. Although expected, the perceived importance of CSOs in democratic society wasn’t followed by greater legal, financial and institutional support for the development of the sector. The USAID/ISC 2009 survey on the situation in the CSO sector in Serbia showed that more organizations perceive the current political climate as more suitable for the development of NGO sector in comparison to 2005. Cooperation between current government of the republic of Serbia and NGO sector is assessed as better (good has increased from 31% to 45% and poor and very poor has decreased from 60% to 41%).
In 2009, over 53% of the people polled believe that the state is basically uninterested and underestimates the importance of the sector. 19% of them believe that the state sees the CSOs as partners, while 17% think that the State see CSOs as opponents. As reported in the CIVICUS Civil Society Index from 2005, the overall treatment of the sector by the state is marked with misunderstanding, often antagonistic view of the CSOs. While there is some support to “benign” organizations (sports or artistic associations), as well as organizations that often take over the social role of the state, the treatment of organizations working in the field of human rights, especially issues related to war crimes and the Hague Tribunal, is openly hostile. The cooperation between the Government of Serbia and the sector is most frequently perceived as bad or very bad (total of 60% people polled). Majority of CSOs also believe that sector doesn’t have enough influence in public policy creation. At the same time, the FeNS study found a lack of proactive stand among CSOs – with 30% showing lack of interest in negotiating about the new CSO legislation and financial regulations and only 50% supporting active role of CSOs during election campaigns.
There are over 40 national strategies in Serbia today, many of which included some form of consultation with civil society or other form of CSO participation during their development. Although civil society involvement has usually been at the behest of the international donors promoting the strategic process, CSOs can claim to have influenced current government social policy in a number of key areas:
The Poverty Reduction Strategy (2003), sponsored by the World Bank and the EC (CARDS 03), included an extensive national process of civil society consultations and set the standard for subsequent strategic planning. This included the establishment of a Civil Society Advisory Committee comprising 11 CSOs representing poor and vulnerable groups ‐ the Roma, the disabled, refugees and single parents.
The National Youth Strategy (2007) was developed by wide consultative mechanisms with active participation of youth CSOs and also awarded youth CSOs a major role in its implementation as well.
The Social Protection Development Strategy (2005) has the objective to facilitate the development of, among others, the partnership between public, non‐governmental and private social service providers. This Strategy helped CSOs to become recognized as social service providers.
Other national strategies which have involved CSO participation and assist in establishing policy frameworks favorable to civil society at the sartorial level include:
The National Employment Strategy (2005), the National Strategy for Economic Development 2006‐2012, the Strategy for Public Administration Reform in the Republic of Serbia (2004), the National Strategy for Improvement of the Position of Women and the Promotion of Gender Equality, the National Strategy for Improving the Position of the Roma Population, the National Strategy to Improve the Position of Persons with Disabilities, the Serbian Action Plan for Children.
CSOs have occasionally been consulted during the drafting of legislation, especially in areas such as social protection and social policy. A recent example is the case of the Law on the Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Persons with Disabilities, which engaged a considerable number of CSOs that deal with this issue. CSOs are working in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture on the New Law of Foundations, and similarly, the Ministry of Finance is working with two major Serbian CSOs – CRNPS and BCIF – on developing legislative means of providing CSOs fiscal benefits to facilitate their work.
The National Parliamentary Forum is a periodic meeting of parliamentarians and some representatives from civil society to discuss key issues arising from the national Poverty Reduction Strategy in order to identify best practice and learning in the implementation process.
Role of CSOs in initiating new policies/documents
Despite drawbacks of the Government’s Rules of Procedure, in the past few years in Serbia has stabilized the practice that civil society organizations get included into processes of designing strategies and other important public policy documents. Up to now have been adopted more than 40 such documents (poverty reduction strategy, sustainable development strategy, youth strategy, national action plan for children etc.). This good practice indicates that civil society organizations are ever more recognized as an important partner of authorities in defining and regulating social priorities and needs. Nevertheless, in order to call this process a partnership, in the full sense of the word, it is necessary to eliminate the present obstacles, both on the side of the State and on the side of civil society.
Role so far and contribution of CSOs: Initiation and public campaigning of new laws, such as the Law on Associations (a fiasco is that the battle took almost 9 years for this law to be adopted); the Law on Persons with Disabilities, the Anti-Discrimination Law, Law on Free Access to Information of Public Importance; Law on Gender Equality; the Anti-Corruption Law, draft Law on Funds and foundations, changes in tax laws and other laws currently undergoing adoption procedure, provide examples that thought Serbian Civil Society that significant changes require time, but also that networking and cooperation with State Institutions provides the foundation for successful change. In 2002, first changes in the Criminal Code with regard to domestic violence happened due to the lobbying of both women Law professors and women’s CSOs dealing with the issue. Improvement of this law is remarkable, because from 2002 until today Serbia has one of the best laws in the region about domestic violence, elaborated as separate articles both in the Criminal Code and the Law on Family Relations, with still modest but existing number of perpetrators who are imprisoned under this law chapters. The most recent example is the process of adopting the Anti-Discrimination Law, which was a symbolic victory for the Serbian Civil Society. After a long collaboration between CSOs and government institutions, just before the formal adoption of this law by the Serbian Parliament, conservative and nationalist forces tried to obstruct the key premises of this Law, but after a powerful reaction by the CSOs, this crucial issue was debated for almost a month in the media and among the general public, leading finally to the achievement of an acceptable compromise. Moreover, this is the most important law in the field of human rights in Serbia, and following its implementation will present a new great challenge for the Civil Society Sector. The weak side of this process is actual monitoring of law implementation, for which CSOs lack capacity and stable funding.
There is lack of transparent and efficient mechanism of civil participation in the procedure of drafting laws and other public policy instruments that would define in detail minimum standards of participation and consultations (this refers to both executive and legislative authorities). The Government’s Rules of Procedure in force are not an efficient mechanism for participation of citizens and CSOs in the process of drafting laws and other public policy instruments; therefore participation of CSOs in public discussions organized by authorized proposers in the first place results from Initiative and self-organizing of the sector itself, more than from direct and formal invitation of authorized proposers of regulations and documents.
There is also lack of general standards and procedures regarding appointment of representatives of civil society in foundation and activities of different bodies at the national and local levels. The criteria of selecting CSO representatives for these bodies is not always clear, because the process is not public, therefore it often occurs that in a body are not sitting the most competent CSO representatives for topics related to the civil sector. It is still a frequent practice to form working groups for designing a law, which consist exclusively of representatives of competent ministries and professors, i.e. representatives of academic community without one civil society representative – even when it is about legal regulation of issues that representatives of academic community have modest academic and even more modest practical experience in (for instance, designing of the Law on Volunteering). However, there are more and more examples of CSO participation in: attending meetings, giving opportunity to give comments on different policies (most recently draft law on social services); being members of different councils (for example, Council for EU integrations, Council to the Minister of youth and sports), participation in consultative processes (PRSP, National youth strategy, KOCD mechanism…).
There have been different types of participation, including the Poverty Reduction Strategy adopted in 2003 as the main document of public policy in this domain. The Strategy results from a wide consultative process with 250 CSOs taking part in the process. Strategy designing was managed by seven representative advisory committees, including the Civil Society Advisory Committee. The main role of the Advisory Committee was to establish a functional and constructive cooperation between representatives of the Government and CSOs. Thanks to the activities of the Committee, a broad consultative process was conducted with a large number of CSOs, and proposals of the poorest groups of population were incorporated in the strategic priorities of the country. The Civil Society Advisory Committee stopped working in early 2006 because of awareness that this mechanism was not sufficiently functional in the Strategy implementation process. However, there still existed the need for cooperation. The team of the Vice Prime Minister of the Republic of Serbia for Implementation of the Poverty Reduction Strategy (Team for PRS Implementation), as the focal (project) institution of the Government for Strategy implementation, faced several challenges while trying to define a new, more efficient mechanism for cooperation. One of the challenges referred to the lack of understanding of importance of cooperation with CSOs by governmental institutions, as well as lack of capacities on both sides for constructive cooperation. Additional, practical challenge that the Team encountered was how to establish an efficient mechanism of cooperation with such a dissected sector like the civil sector.
- The Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Youth Strategy
The Ministry of Youth and Sports was formed after elections in May 2007. It is specific because of the fact that its establishment, inter alia, resulted from a four-year advocacy effort by the Coalition of Youth of Serbia, founded by eight national youth organizations: Civic Initiatives, Students’ Union of Serbia, JAZAS, Youth Information Centre, Scouts of Serbia, Young Researchers, Youth Council of Vojvodina and Youth Council of Serbia. The Coalition was formed for the purpose of organizing an advocacy campaign for youth issues at the local and national levels. The aim of the campaign was to form bodies and strategies for youth at both levels. This campaign is one of the best examples of good practice of consultations of the State with civil society and it was highly evaluated by the Council of Europe. In the course of the first round of consultative process were held 167 round tables in 166 local self-government units where were discussed youth problems in the Republic of Serbia. The total of participants was 4,077. This process was conducted by 47 citizens’ associations. In the second cycle of the consultative process were organized seven regional conferences for collecting comments and proposals related to the wording of the Draft Strategy, while citizens’ associations organized 170 public events. In the Strategy designing part took, in different ways, some 16,000 young people. During the consultative process and public discussion were collected opinions not only of participants in the Strategy design process but also opinions of broader public, through Internet website and sent directly to the address of the Ministry of Youth and Sports.
On the local level, there are several examples of CSO participation:
- Municipal Coordination Committee for Social policy (OKOSP)
OKOSP emerged as one of the components of the project “Social Policy Reform”. The Committee is an advisory body of the President of the Municipality, which is formed in compliance with the Law on Local Self-Government. Besides cooperating with the President of the Municipality, this body also cooperates with the social activities service in the local self-government, as well as with the Municipality Assembly. The Committee consists of representatives of all relevant institutions of local self-government and representatives of CSOs. The main criteria for selecting the Committee membership are as follows: readiness and motivation for participation in the social protection reform process; expertise; knowledge of problems related to the needs of vulnerable groups; respectability in the municipality; readiness for teamwork. The Committee is in charge of the following activities: formulating a strategic plan that would solve problems of the most vulnerable groups in the municipality (preceded by designing action plans, analysis of situation, needs and existing resources); partnership promotion; proposing prevention measures in the areas of health care, social protection, employment and education; considering modalities for financing activities in the social policy domain and monitoring of the method of use of these funds; presentation of OKOSP activities and results; preparation of initiatives and proposals with reference to the process of decentralization in social policy, conditions permitting; organization of thematic conferences and other professional gatherings. However, it should be remarked that to date experience in the work of the Committee indicates that this mechanism may be used as a good practice example, but not necessarily as a universal model.
- Council for Issues Related to Persons with Disabilities in the City of Kragujevac
The Council for issues related to persons with disabilities was formed in Kragujevac on 13 March 2009, at the initiative of the Forum of Young People with Disabilities. The need for establishment of the Council was based on insufficient inclusion of persons with disabilities in resolution of issues important for their status, as well as absence of institutional mechanism of cooperation between representatives of local self-government institutions and organizations of persons with disabilities. Processes of decentralization and deinstitutionalization in the domain of social policy that create an opportunity for establishment of cooperation between organizations of persons with disabilities and bodies of local self-government, as well as unfinished institutional-normative framework in the areas of interest for persons with disabilities created the need for mediation and establishment of democratic dialogue between organizations of persons with disabilities and local actors, with the aim to prevent discrimination, human rights violation, to advocate before the local public and stakeholders, for the purpose of creating an inclusive society.
- Direct Participation of Citizens in Decision Making in Sremski Karlovci
Civil participation in decision making is operating through the Council for Development, formed in Sremski Karlovci in late 2008, in the scope of the project “Support to Strengthening Civil Participation in Serbia”, jointly implemented by local authorities, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities ands a Swiss donor. The Council brings together citizens and representatives of local authorities. Through their participation in the work of the Council for Development, citizens of Sremski Karlovci had a task to choose a topic they believe to be the most important for their local community. Inhabitants of Karlovci chose tourism. By participating in the Council, citizens have the opportunity to get concretely engaged in activities and plans for promotion of tourism in their community.
A pilot project for establishment of civil participation in decision making is being implemented in three urban and three rural municipalities in Serbia. Besides Sremski Karlovci, the Municipality of Čoka from Vojvodina is also included in the project.
- Youth Offices
A Youth Office is a local self-government body established in some eighty municipalities or regions in Serbia, with the support by the Ministry of Youth and Sports. The task of the Office is to assist young people in solving their priority problems in the local community (municipality, region). Under jurisdiction of the Office is distribution of information important for young people, education through different programmes and trainings, creation of youth policy at the local level, stimulation of youth activism and voluntarism, finding opportunities for financing youth programmes etc.
Cooperation with the Parliament
The recently adopted Law on the Parliament does not stipulate an obligation of public openness in the work of parliamentary committees, because committees have the discretionary right to decide on inclusion of public, although activities of committees are crucial (at least in formal and legal aspects) for formulating the final law proposal. However, there is a novelty with introducing the institute of public hearing that has been so far rarely used. With regard to the above mentioned, due to the current electoral system (i.e. the fact that mandates belong to parties, not to delegates), the role of the Parliament in the procedure of passing laws and other public policy instruments is reduced to the lowest possible measure.
Law on Professional Rehabilitation and Employment of Disabled Persons was adopted in May 2009, including amendments initiated by citizens through their interest organizations
Cooperation with political parties
The NGO development in Serbia was not going smoothly as it depended primarily on the political power and their attitudes towards civil society, which has been changing since 2000. This is the essential difference between Serbian and most other Eastern European Civil societies. In many countries, development of new state institutions and Civil Society organizations was happening more or less simultaneously and was based on a relative social and political consensus. The Serbian Civil Society developed despite the pressures of the previous and current political systems.
On one hand, there are genuine NGOs who do not want to be associated with any political parties and they do not recognize the importance of cooperating with them, since their influence eon decision making is of vital importance. On the other hand, there are number of CSOs that have been created and are influenced by political parties. This is an area of concern because new law on associations allow for political parties to found an NGO. This created a need to develop internal mechanisms for accountability and transparency within the sector. Initiative is led by Civic Initiatives in cooperation with several leading CSOs.