Andrei Brighidin, Director for Development, Monitoring and Evaluation at East Europe Foundation Moldova, completed his one week fellowship at ECNL's Office in Budapest. Andrei's research is focused on the mechanism of 1% designation, when a taxpayer can attribute 1% of their income tax to a certain NGO.
The mechanism was pioneered in Hungary in 1997 and since then has been introduced in a number of Central and Eastern Europe countries, e.g. Poland, Slovakia, Romania. During the fellowship Andrei met with representatives of Hungarian tax authorities responsible for administering the 1% designations, Hungarian NGOs and the newly established National Cooperation Fund, previously know as National Civil Fund. During the meetings the fellow learnt about the main achievements and the challenges of the 1% designation in terms of implementation and its impact on general NGO sustainability, as well as lessons learnt that could be useful for Moldovan counterparts.
ECNL experts provided consultations to the fellow on the Hungarian and other countries' experience, as well as assisted with developing the outline of the research paper. The paper will be prepared in the next month and presented to the Moldovan counterparts. Developing legal framework for implementation of the percentage mechanism is included in the draft Strategy for Civil Society Development that is currently under discussion in Moldova.
The fellowship was made possible by the generous support of the American people through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), under the Moldova Civil Society Strengthening Program (MCSSP), implemented by FHI 360.