PUBLISHED: NOVEMBER 26, 2004

On November 26, 2004, the City Council of Rijeka adopted an NGO Charter, a document regulating cooperation between the City and local NGOs. The NGO Charter is the first of its kind to be adopted by a municipal government in Croatia.

The NGO Charter sets City policy toward NGOs, emphasizing the transparency of financing NGO activities. Significantly, the Charter envisions the creation of a Coordination Committee, which will consist of NGO representatives (selected jointly by all NGOs) and City government representatives. The Committee will set standards for City departments for financing NGO activities, providing them with templates to prepare procedures and objective criteria for evaluating NGO grant proposals.

As it was being developed, the draft Rijeka NGO Charter served as model for Vukovarska County. The County has developed its own charter based on the Rijeka model and also adopted it as the County NGO Charter. Other local governments are expected to follow the Rijeka example.