Views

Overcoming prejudices about the NGO sector
 

The non-governmental sector has been ruffling the spirits in Macedonia over the past ten years. It is good, it is a proof of its authenticity and toughness. It has overcome the campaigns for “foreign/other’s tools”, “money-laundries”, pests for the country and idlers that do not know what to do and follow only their own interest. OK, there are such cases. In a country of transition, tormented by poverty, tightened on the stormy and strategically always interesting Balkan space, Macedonia is certainly compliant for such cases. However, the individual stains must not be raised on a level of a rule and principle that will stir the real values and visions.

For the people who are familiar with this field, the real story about the non-governmental sector in Macedonia is nice and high-principled. According to the size, organizing and dedication, this sector raises us high towards the European standards and is certainly one of the topics for lobbying for our country in the process of Euro-integration. There is certain scepticism towards it as a result of the insufficient knowing the essence of civic associating and activism. The society is a too complex and heterogeneous whole to be able to function harmonically only through bureaucratic regulations and measures. Civic activism is a result of natural associating around a common need, interest, idea or belief. The objective is to raise the public awareness, to initiate changes, to accept them and disseminate them in the society, but also to follow and correct the state in its work, directing it towards the specific interests of a certain group of citizens. Citizens rally around a common strategy, putting aside their differences – ideological, ethnical, religious, professional. In the higher forms of activism there is inter-sector taking actions, where the non-governmental organizations are amalgam for linking and taming differences. A good illustration would be the Macedonian Women Lobby that within four years, through such common activism of women of different structures, has managed to make significant changes in the sphere of gender equality. The Inter-parties parliamentary lobby for the people with special needs has also taken this way. The thing that is not always clear to the ones who are not directly interested in this issues is the fact that such operating also gives other results, apart from the immediate given objectives: bigger cohesion of the society in whole and improving the image of the Republic of Macedonia as a country with standards measurable with the European.

There is a great number of positive individual examples of enthusiastic operating, but there is a common remark that the ending is missing – regular and continuous partner cooperation with the state, which is not to be considered subordination of one to the other sector. So far, on a satisfactory level, there has been cooperation mainly between the non-governmental sector and the local authorities, where the City of Skopje has been the first and often pointed example of sincere support and openness to partnership. However, more intensive and more sincere cooperation is necessary when preparing laws, delegating a part of the authorities, as well as openness towards civic initiatives in favour of certain specific needs of groups of citizens. Generally speaking, my impression is that first we need to explain and understand the beliefs related to the non-governmental sector and to lobby for its dignified treatment by the state, media and the citizens in the widest sense.

A part of this can be solved by a legal regulation, proposed by the Government and passed by the Parliament. It is a novelty that in these institutions there is a critical mass for initiating and accepting such laws. I will take as an example the latest version of the Law for social issues, where the Ministry of labour and social policy has made, in my opinion, some revolutionary changes, widely opening a space for taking actions of the non-governmental organizations in the delicate social sphere. It implies thrust, but responsibility, too. It implies establishing a system of criteria, according to which the non-governmental sector will purify itself internally, as a guild structure. This process has already started and we are witnesses of insisting on bigger transparency in taking actions by the non-governmental organizations themselves.

I am optimistic and I believe that we will succeed, all together. The number of us who are aware that this is the way we should work for the benefit of the citizens of Macedonia is constantly increasing.

(The author is a vice-president of the Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia
and a long-year activist in the civic sector)