“The Civil Society Resource Centre is primarily intended for organisations that most often are not able to receive EU funds. The reason is that they are small, and we are complicated, and because there are so many CSOs that it is impossible for us to take all of them into account. This is only a small portion of support that we offer to them”, said Nicola Bertolini, Head of Cooperation at the EU Delegation in Skopje, at today’s opening of the Civil Society Resource Centre, which will be managed by Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC).
Aleksandar Krzalovski, first executive director of MCIC, in his speech pointed out MCIC’s efforts to support CSOs in the past years. “The idea about a resource centre in the country is not a new one and in the past few years this activity was implemented under another EU-funded project – Technical Assistance for Civil Society Organisations or better known as TACSO, which was also implemented by MCIC” he said.
This resource centre will provide innovative and inspirational space for the big and small CSOs and activists. To this end, besides the resource centre in Skopje, resource centres will be also opened in Gostivar and Shtip, as well as additional mobile resource centres for full geographical coverage of the country. Besides that, the centre will offer support and easy access to resources needed for smooth operation of CSOs. Trainings, conferences will be organised, regular logistical support will be provided, small partnership grants will be awarded, annual reports on enabling environment for CSOs will be prepared, help-desk and a resource website will be established for them.
“This project is not an end in itself. The most common question is about the sustainability of this kind of resource centres. We won’t be the happiest if the centre exists after three, five or 10 years, but if majority of the organisations that will be beneficiaries of our services become sustainable in the following years”, said Emina Nuredinoska, head of the civil society department at MCIC.
Irena Ivanova, programme manager in EU Delegation in Skopje, spoke about the need for a strong civil society and the importance of the EU support in the past 10 years. “What we have learned so far is that CSOs really have to strengthen their voice, work together on sectoral policies and reach out to the state institutions with proactive expertise, which is already happening. Thus, I would say that we reached crescendo in this entire process”, she noted.
The Civil Society Resource Centre is part of the programme National Resource Centre for Civil Society Organisations, funded by the European Union and implemented by MCIC in partnership with Media Plus from Shtip and Association for Democratic Initiatives, ADI from Gostivar.
