Our partner, Institutum Virtutes Civilis Moldova (IVC) and the State Chancellery in Moldova, with the support of ECNL, organized a public consultation on the draft regulation on state funding for CSOs – a document that the Moldovan government is expected to adopt by the end of 2020.
Challenges delaying the adoption
The public consultation is the final stretch of a long process that started in 2018, one that was full of hurdles.
There seemed to be a real opening for positive CSO reforms in March 2018, when the government approved the draft Law on non-commercial organizations (NCO Law) and the Parliament adopted the Civil Society Development Strategy 2018-2020. Both these documents were developed with the understanding that government should support CSOs through various mechanisms including state funding.
However, soon after that the situation and political climate changed:
- After May 2018 the adoption process of the draft NCO law stopped. Later in that year the Parliament prepared a report on the “Open Dialogue” Foundation suggesting that legislation for CSOs should be revised to ensure there is no foreign interference in Moldova’s political life.
- 2019 was even more turbulent and Moldova had 3 different governments and a number of political crises.
- 2020 brought the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, it was also an election year with a new President elected on November 15.
Still, despite these turbulent times, the regulation of state funding for CSOs is approaching a successful end – a process that ECNL has supported throughout the last 3 years. The key prerequisite was to identify a local partner to lead the process and we are happy to have Ms. Liliana Palihovici and IVC Moldova as our key partner in that area: they have in-depth understanding of the processes and desire to improve the situation in Moldova. In addition, they managed to mobilize the support of Moldova’s State Chancellery and their leadership in the process on behalf of the state administration - this has been included as an example of successful cooperation in the 2020 government report.
Reform process leading to better regulation
2018
The process started with analysing the status quo and identifying the problems and possible solutions. ECNL worked with Ms. Palihovici to develop an analysis , which identified the need to develop a unified regulation of how the state provides funding to CSOs. The analysis also highlighted the need for a legal basis for this process. ECNL presented the recommendation from the analysis and discussed it with more than 100 CSOs and state representatives during the conference “The Road to Financial Sustainability of Civil Society Organizations” in May 2018.
You can find the complete list of recommendations here.
The first step in the reform process was to advocate for the need that the NCO law should establish clearly the principles, forms and procedures of direct financing of CSOs by the state. As a result, the drafters introduced changes in art. 5 of the draft law related to state funding.
2019
in November 2019, IVC Moldova, the State Chancellery and ECNL organized a public discussion with representatives of CSOs and state authorities to discuss the problems and solutions with regard to state funding. As a result, there was a joint agreement on the need to develop the regulation.
2020
Throughout 2020 IVC Moldova worked to support the State Chancellery to develop the regulation. They collected input from both state authorities and CSOs and ensure the process remains highly participatory.
In the meantime, on July 27, 2020 the new NCO law was officially published in the State Gazette, providing a clear legal basis for the development of a framework regulation for state funding of CSOs. The key principles included in art. 5 are:
- The state provides financial and material support to non-commercial organizations for their organizational development and implementation of projects.
- The Government shall establish the framework mechanism for providing financial support, guided by the principles of dialogue, transparency, simplicity and clarity of procedures, equal treatment, recognition of the particularities of different categories of organizations, the efficiency of the use of public funds and multi-annual funding.
- Financial support shall be provided following a public tender.
In October 2020 the State Chancellery started the formal process of adoption of the regulation by publishing on its website information about the upcoming public consultation of the draft. The draft regulation is already included in the action plan of the State Chancellery and the public discussion on 19 November is one of the last steps before its expected adoption.
We believe the results of this process will lead to increased transparency and improved support to the crucial work CSOs are doing in Moldova.