Symposium: NGO-Government Partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union

Letter from the Editors

The International Journal
of Not-for-Profit Law

Volume 3, Issue 4, March 2001

Dear Reader,

This issue is a “Symposium Issue” containing a series of papers and other documents that were presented at ICNL’s conference on NGO/government partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.  It was held on April 27-28, 2001 in Opatija, Croatia.  The conference focused on NGO/government compacts and the legal framework for public financing of NGOs.  Government officials, NGO representatives, and lawyers from twenty-eight countries participated in the conference, which was opened by the Deputy Prime Minister Antunovic of Croatia.

The issues discussed at the conference are ones of crucial importance for NGOs in other countries in addition to the transition countries of the former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe.  For example, questions of government procurement of services from NGOs and the terms under which this should occur have arisen many places in recent years, including India and Swaziland.  Terms of cooperation between the NGO sector and government are under discussion in the UK and many members of the Commonwealth.  Those discussions have led to consideration of compacts or compact-like arrangements (in French, “chartes”) in many other countries, including France, the US, and Ireland.  And the entire issue of government subsidies for the NGO sector is a complex and difficult one in many countries.

All of this discussion comes at a time when the role of NGOs and their activities are being redefined.  NGOs are doing two things with increasing frequency. On the one hand, they are relying on greater government financing of their activities, which brings into question their independence.  On the other, they are looking to develop self-financing mechanisms that bring them into conflict with business and raise the issue of whether NGOs should see efficiency as a primary goal of their operations.  The first of these tensions is discussed in detail in the materials that follow.  The second will be addressed in subsequent issues of the Journal.

Good reading!

Sincerely,

Karla W. Simon and Leon E. Irish
General Editors

ICNL is grateful to those who have supported this publication, including the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the Wallace Global Fund, the Helen Bader Foundation, the Compton Foundation, the American Express Foundation, the AT&T Foundation, the GE Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Counterpart Foundation, the Aga Khan Foundation, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation, the Asian Development Bank, the Eurasia Foundation, and the Chevron Corporation.