By adopting the ’National Strategy for the Creation of an Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development and the Operational Implementation Plan’ in 2006, the Government of the Republic of Croatia has committed itself to take a systematic approach for the creation of an institutional and legal framework to support and develop civil society. One of the objectives of that reform is to develop a democratic society based on participative democracy which implies active participation of citizens in the creation of public policy.
To this end and in line with the ’Operational Implementation Plan’, the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs together with the Council for the Development of Civil Society created a ’Code of Good Practice for Consultations’ to provide guidelines for inclusion of the relevant civil society actors into all segments of the decision-making process. The Code should serve as a starting point for the development of civic participation, based on a systemic civil dialogue between all relevant partners.
Taking into account the context of drawing up the Code, the aim of the forum was to enable an exchange of experience, knowledge, and good practice in the area of civil dialogue between Croatia and Slovenia, but also to create a forum for discussion among all interested state and non-state actors from both countries on how to improve existing practices of democratic participation.
At the same time, discussion was placed into a wider European perspective provided by representatives of the EU institutions and European NGOs such as EPHA and the European Social Platform.
EPHA and Empowering of Civil Society Organisations
A lot of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the new EU Member States and Candidate EU countries are just starting to emerge and develop. EPHA has a high degree of knowledge and experience in how to engage in EU policy making. EPHA has undertaken a number of capacity-building exercises for NGOs in new Member States, but also for its broader membership and will be restarting its workshop and seminar programme in the near future. Capacity building is crucial to empower CSOs in identifying their role and scope in the policy making process. The Forum was very successful in its goal to empower and build capacity amongst its participants. and EPHA would like to thank the Croatian Government not only for their leadership and achievements, but also for their commitment to engaging civil society.
EPHA will follow this work closely and hopefully can share this learning experience with other interested Member States.
