OSCE Project Co-ordinator advocates sustainability of Ukraine's civil society sector

KYIV, 8 October, 2008 - Evaluating the development of civil society in Ukraine and ways to enhance its sustainability are the focus of an OSCE-organized conference that opened in Kyiv today.

Lubomir Kopaj, the OSCE Project Co-ordinator in Ukraine, highlighted the importance of striving for the sustainability of Ukraine's NGONGO
non-governmental organization sector on both national and regional levels. "We would like to see Ukrainian civil society organizations independent from international donor's support. We would like them to be strong, competent, effective and reputable. And we will continue to support this process," he said in his opening remarks at the conference.

Attended by representatives of government as well as NGOs, the symposium aimed to summarize the achievements and lessons learned of a civil society development (CSD) project that the OSCE Project Co-ordinator implemented over the past three years with financial support from Danish Foreign Ministry.

The project included micro-grants for 80 civil society organizations in five regions of Ukraine - Kirovograd, Lviv, Lugansk, Kherson and Khmelnitskiy. Beneficiaries of these micro-grants work to protect the rights of youth and the disabled, for openness and transparency of the bodies of state authorities, and for human rights adherence in the work of law enforcement agencies.

Conference participants discussed innovative approaches, mechanisms and methods of addressing concerns of citizens in Ukraine's regions, co-operation between civil society and local authorities, and best practices for advocacy campaigns aimed at supporting the reform process in Ukraine.

Louise Berth of the Danish Foreign Ministry said that for Denmark, a country with deep-rooted civil society traditions, Ukraine's non-governmental sector development remains a high priority. "The conference should give the right direction to civil society development in Ukraine and answer the questions that arose during the implementation of the three-year CSD project," she said.