Meeting with the Head of Eastern and Southern Africa Division at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation

On 5th March, Civica Mobilitas team met Séverine Donnet-Descartes, the Head of Eastern and Southern Africa Division at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

She was interested in the challenges of the civil society, as well as about the possibilities that the programme offers to CSOs in the country.

Aleksandar Krzhalovski, the Programme Team Leader and Director of the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC) spoke about the development of Civica Mobilitas, the biggest programme for civil society support in the country, funded by the Swiss Government in the last almost two decades.

Speaking about the context and the environment in which CSOs function, Krzhalovski presented the Civil Society Index data, which are part of the CIVICUS – World Alliance for Citizen Participation global methodology, which has been implemented by MCIC since 2006. The Swiss guest was also interested in the data of measuring the trust in the civil society, as an indicator of the perception about the role and influence of the civil sector and organizations in the society. One of the main topics of the discussion was state funding for CSOs, not only as an issue of financial support, but also as a need to establish a transparent system that will enable building trust between CSOs and institutions at central and local level. In this context, there were discussions on how much from the state budget is intended for the civil society, and which percentage of the total revenue of CSOs comes from these funds.

One of the topics for discussion was also the process of capitalization, which should cover the results achieved in the almost 20-year long programme implementation. With this process, there will be a broader analysis of the achievements, taking into consideration the context in which the activities have taken place, as well as their connection to the key social events in the country.

The timeline of the capitalization was also presented, developed as a digital tool for easier navigation through the results achieved in the course of the years.

Séverine Donnet-Descartes assessed the grant dashboard as an “interesting tool for demonstration and transparency”. The tool has been prepared by the Civica Mobilitas team and it provides an overview of the supported organizations, the types of grants, thematic areas and regional coverage of activities. This is especially useful with respect to the fact that the programme has been considerably intended for financial support of CSOs.

Donnet-Descartes was informed that the financial support has been provided in all regions and organizations from different municipalities have the opportunity to receive a grant if they meet the contractual obligations/conditions, regardless of their size or their experience.

The Civica Mobilitas team reconfirmed the good communication and reporting on the achievements of the grantees, expressing their gratitude for the Swiss support to civil society so far.