May 2013

ADVICE FOR COOPERATION WITH THE CIVIL

SOCIETY: COMPARATIVE PRACTICE IN CROATIA

AND MONTENEGRO

Branka Anđelkoviċ, SIPU

CONTENT:

1. INTRODUCTION: WHY ADVICE? ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

2. LEGAL GROUNDS FOR ESTABLISHING THE COUNCIL ............................ Error! Bookmark not defined.

3. NAMES AND GOALS OF THE COUNCIL ................................................................................................ 4

4. METHODS OF SELECTING MEMBERS .................................................................................................. 5

5. CRITERIA OF SELECTING MEMBERS.....................................................................................................6

6. PROCEDURE OF RECOMMENDING OCD MEMBERS IN THE COUNCIL ................................................ 7

7. WORK METHODS OF THE COUNCIL .................................................................................................... 8

8. SERVICE AND SUPPORT TO THE COUNCIL’S WORK ............................................................................ 9

9. PLANNING AND CONTROL OF SUCCESSFUL COUNCIL’S WORK ....................................................... 10

10. RECOMMENDATIONS ................................................................................................................. ……..10

1. INTRODUCTION: WHY ADVICE?

National governments establish Councils mostly with the aim of responding to an important

social problem or topic of broader political, social and/or economic significance. Councils are

established not only because of expert knowledge but because of representativeness as well.

They can vary in their membership; certain councils include only state (public) administration

officials from different government bodies and selected public officials (politically appointed

persons recommended as candidates for a chosen position by a political subject). However,

apart from officials and chosen public officials, councils often include experts from areas

important for the work of the council as well as representatives of the interested public.

Councils have an advisory function and they give proposals, opinions and justifications on the

basis of a defined task which was the reason for establishing a council. Councils are often

established in order to formulate strategies for solving identified problems and topic and then

to monitor their implementation and results in solving those problems. The best-known world

council is probably the Security Council of the United Nations.

Taking into consideration the fact that many countries do not have a representative

organization or an organization which represent organizations of a civil society (OCD), councils

for cooperation or development of the civil society are established as a welcome mechanism

for institutional cooperation between that country and OCD. Councils for development of the

civil society are recent phenomena since OCD have become frequent providers of social

services and active promoters of respecting human rights and responsible public administration

and politics. As for former Yugoslav countries and Eastern Bloc countries, councils for

cooperation or development OCD have been established in Croatia, Montenegro, Hungary,

Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. The youngest among them is the Council in

Montenegro established in 2010 while the oldest one is the Czech council, which was

established in 1992. Serbia and Macedonia are planning to establish councils for cooperation or

development in the course of 2013.

Because of similar legal solutions as well as cultural closeness, this short analysis is primarily

intended to consider examples and work of the councils in Croatia and Montenegro.

2. LEGAL GROUNDS FOR ESTABLISHING THE COUNCIL

Legal grounds for establishing the Montenegrin Council for cooperation of the Montenegro

Government and NGOs (2010) are the Decree on the Government of Montenegro and the Rules

of Procedure of the Government of Montenegro. As far as Croatia is concerned, there was the

Decision about establishing the Council for Civil Society Development in compliance with the

Law on Government of the Republic of Croatia.

Similar to Croatia and Montenegro, Serbian councils are often established in compliance with

the Law on the Government (Article 33, Paragraphs 2 and 3) or in compliance with some special

laws. The law on the Government stipulates that the Government can occasionally establish a

working body in order to consider certain issues within its competence and to give proposals,

opinions and expert justifications, on the basis of a decision determining its task. Pursuant to

the Decision of the Government of the Republic of Serbia, the following bodies have been

established: the Anti-Corruption Council, the Council for Relations with the European Court for

Human Rights etc. According to some special laws1, national councils of national minorities and

the Social-Economic Council have been established as well.

3. NAMES AND GOALS OF THE COUNCIL

Croatia named its council as the Council for Civil Society Development unlike Montenegro,

which has the Council for cooperation with non-government organizations (NGO). The Czech

Republic and Slovakia identically named Councils for non-governmental and non-profit

organizations, while Poland has the Council on public benefit activities. In almost all these

countries there are also secretariats supporting the work of the councils or offices, or

departments, for cooperation or development OCD, e.g. in Croatia, Montenegro and Poland.

Tasks of the councils only partially depend on their official names. The focus of the

Montenegrin Council is monitoring the implementation of the Strategy of cooperation between

the Montenegro Government and NGOs and the action plan; encouraging development and

improving relations and cooperation between the Montenegro Government and OCD;

establishing institutional mechanisms for cooperation of OCD and public administration;

involving relevant OCDs in the process of establishing and implementing public policies; giving

opinions about regulation drafts concerning the normative framework for OCD work as well as

improving that framework; considering and monitoring reports of the public administration

about allotted financial funds for projects of non-government organizations.

Croatian Council for Civil Society Development has very similar tasks but it additionally includes

work on permanent monitoring and analysis of public policies concerning and/or influencing

development of the civil society in the Republic of Croatia and inter-sector cooperation; it

1 LAW ON NATIONAL COUNCILS OF NATIONAL MINORITIES (OFFICIAL GAZETTE OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA NO.

72/2009), LAW ON HIGH JUDICIAL COUNCIL (OFFICIAL GAZETTE OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA NO. 116/2008), LAW ON

THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC COUNCIL (OFFICIAL GAZETTE OF THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA NO. 125/2004)

cooperates with the Croatian Government in planning priorities of national programs for

financial support to projects and programs of the civil society organizations from the state

budget; it participates in planning and establishing priorities for the use of pre-accession

programs and funds of the European Union which have been opened for the Republic of Croatia

according to consultations with civil society organizations; finally it also considers cooperation

achieved with the private sector.

Therefore the Croatian council set more ambitious goals at the beginning of its work than the

Montenegro one. The recent evaluation of the Croatian Council (TACSO, 2012) shows that its

influence and efficiency have increased gradually (since its first meeting in 2002). After ten

years the greatest achievements of the Council are in the domain of monitoring

implementation of previous and formulating new Strategies for civil society development

(2012–2016), institutionalization of OCD participation in programming EU funds, establishing

systems and standards of consultations between public administration and OCD in the process

of creating public policies and monitoring financial support to OCD work from the state budget.

The range of the Council’s work was still restricted even by the more successful initiatives: the

evaluation mentions that the cooperation between public administration and OCD has been

partial, that development of philanthropy has not reached far, that the cooperation with the

civil society has been limited to only one segment of the civil society (focus on NGOs). The

evaluation of the Montenegrin Council has not been stipulated by the Council’s Rules of

Procedure and the first and only annual report on the work of the Montenegrin Council does

not deal with its work efficiency.

4. METHODS OF SELECTING MEMBERS

As it has already been said, most councils are not established only for the sake of expert

knowledge but also because of representativeness. Apart from officials and chosen public

officials councils often include experts from areas important for the work of the council as well

as representatives of the interested public.

Councils for civil society can have the majority of members from the civil society (Hungary,

Croatia), an equal number of members from two sectors and the chairperson appointed by the

Council (Montenegro) or with the chairperson appointed by the minister/Government (Poland,

Slovakia).

All Council members, regardless of the sector they come from, are finally approved by the

Government. However, the method of selecting members can differ. One possibility with

variations is that members are selected and appointed by the Government (on the basis of

clearly or broadly established criteria). The second possibility is that representatives are

selected by ministries/government bodies they come from, while representatives of the

organizations of the civil society are selected by organizations themselves (on the basis of

clearly or broadly established criteria). There is also a model in which members are nominated

by OCDs and selected by the Government or a relevant government body.

Both in Montenegro and in Croatia the councils were formed by giving importance to the

selection of the members from the civil societies and thus OCDs are the ones that select their

representatives. In Montenegro the Council has 24 members, 12 representatives of the

Government, 12 representatives of NGOs and the chairperson appointed by the Council. The

President of the Council is a representative of the Government. The chairperson’s deputy is

chosen by the Council at his/her proposal. In Croatia there are 27 members, 12 representatives

of the Government, 12 representatives of NGOs and 3 representatives of the civil society from

foundations, unions and association of employers. The chairperson is appointed by

representatives of the civil society while his/her deputy is appointed by the representatives of

public administration.

5. CRITERIA OF SELECTING MEMBERS

In Montenegro and Croatia criteria for selecting members from OCDs are established by the

Decision about establishing the Council (Montenegro) and by the Rules of Procedure (Croatia).

In Croatia only the person is selected while in Montenegro both the person and the

organization he/she comes from are selected.

In Croatia the Rules of Procedure stipulate that the person is i) a Croatian citizen, ii) that he/she

has minimum three years of experience in the area he applies for iii) that he/she is not a

member of any political party, a state or public official, that he/she is not in a management

position or a state official or an appointee in the state administration bodies.

In Montenegro the Decision includes: i) the domain of the organization’s activities (for each of

them one member or organization is selected), ii) the organization must be registered at least

one year, iii) in its statute it has activities and goals from the domain it applies for, iv) that it

realized one or more projects in the amount of over 2000 EUR in a certain domain in the

previous year, v) that members of the management bodies of a NGO are not members of any

political party, state and public officials, managing persons or state officials and appointees in

the state administration bodies.

Since in Montenegro both the organization and the person are selected, the following criteria

refer to the member applied by the organization: i) that he/she is a Montenegrin citizen, ii) that

he/she has experience in the domain of activities applied for by the organization, iii) that

he/she is not a member of any political party, a state or public official, that he/she is not in a

management position or a state official or an appointee in the state administration bodies, iv)

that he has at least a college degree.

Montenegrin Decision and Croatian Rules of Procedure also stipulate that only one member can

be selected from one organization and therefore the organization itself can recommend only

one member. The domain of activities are selected on the basis of previous consultations with

OCD and analyses of the offices of the civil society, which have pointed out the domains where

OCDs are the most active and achieve the best results.

While members of the Croatian Council do not receive any compensation for their work in the Council, the Montenegrin Council gives such compensation. According to the interview with the representatives of the Croatian office, the Montenegrin office as well as with the chairperson of the Croatian Council, the question of this compensation for work in the Council has arisen as a significant and necessary one. According to the Evaluation of the work of the Croatian Council, key restrictions can be seen in

the problem that representatives of state bodies are not highly ranking public officials or

selected public officials, and therefore they do not have the possibility of decision-making. It

has continuously slowed down the work of the Council. As for OCD representatives, the report

shows that the key problem was the lack of connection and consultations with the „base“, or

the organizations in the domain for which these persons were appointed. The problem also

arises from the large number of members (27) and because of that the Council lacks efficiency.

The first and only annual report about the work of the Montenegrin Council indicates that the

criterion for selecting organizations stating that NGOs must not have the category of public

appointees in their management bodies has substantially restricted the number of

organizations which can apply. The report also considers the criterion of selecting people on the

basis of their degree of education, which favoured the level of the applicant’s institutional

education and not his/her experience in the sector. That criterion also restricts the nomination

of participating minority groups (e.g. Romas) or social groups (for example persons with

disabilities) who have not been able to gain further education. The report also considers the

criterion about recommending an applicant for the Council member on the basis of the number

of submitted recommendations but without a better solution available.

According to the interviewees from Croatia and Montenegro, the role of the chairperson is of

great importance because that person is in charge of facilitating processes but also of the

overall positioning of the Council. Conspicuous communication skills as well as negotiation skills

are essential for the leading role in the Council.

6. PROCEDURE OF RECOMMENDING OCD MEMBERS IN THE COUNCIL

Both in Montenegro and in Croatia the procedure of recommending representatives of NGOs

begins by public invitation published on the Government site and in the press. The public

invitation contains the criteria for OCDs, criteria for applicants, documentation which should be

submitted together with the applicant’s recommendation as a member of the Council, as well

as the deadline and the place of submitting recommendations. The deadline for submitting

recommendations cannot be shorter than 15 days from the day of the public invitation.

In Montenegro, the Office is obliged to publish a list of applicants and organizations applied as

members of the Council seven days before the deadline. The Office recommends the applicant

for whom there is the largest number of recommendations by NGOs from the corresponding

domain of activities defined in the Decision.

In Croatia the Office for associations publishes on its Internet page all the valid applications

with the invitation to OCDs to give their vote to one applicant and his deputy in the domain of

their activities. At the same time non-valid applications are also published with the aim of giving

8 days for complaints. Finally, the Office for associations publishes the list of applicants with the

largest number of votes, who will be recommended to the Croatian Government to be

appointed for the member and deputy member of the Council for a certain domain of activities,

as well as the list of other applicants and the number of their votes.

7. WORK METHODS OF THE COUNCIL (dynamics of meetings, sub-groups,

cooperation with other bodies/councils, consultations)

Councils are periodical working bodies meeting more frequently than once a month and in most

cases several times per year. They can be established as permanent or temporary bodies. In

both cases members have a limited mandate and are selected for three to five years. In Croatia

the Council’s mandate is 3 years and the same is in Montenegro.

In the past 10 years the Croatian Council met maximum 7–8 times per year and most frequently

4 times per year. In Montenegro the Council met 7 times in 2011 and somewhat less frequently

during 2012.

In implementing its tasks the Croatian Council can found permanent and temporary work

groups. The Montenegrin Council stipulates a similar solution. Experts from the corresponding

domains can also be invited to participate in the work of both Councils. With the aim of

monitoring the implementation of the Strategy of cooperation with NGOs the Montenegrin

Council can also initiate and help the establishment of similar councils at the municipal level.

As it has already been said, both the Montenegrin and the Croatian councils stipulate

consultations with the expert public through individual work groups. In Croatia there is a

mechanism of previous consulting and discussion with various experts through work groups.

However, this practice has not developed sufficiently in either country.

Moreover, it turns out that there is a lack of two-way communication between the Council and

the OCD “base”. Thus the Evaluation of the Croatian Council shows that the representation is

“left to the responsibility of the OCD representatives” and that it is necessary to develop a

transparent and planned process of cooperation with OCDs as part of the Council’s work

procedure. Similar attitudes were expressed by the interviewees from Croatia and Montenegro,

emphasizing that planned consultations with OCDs as well as with representatives of public

administrations actually strengthen the legitimacy of the Council, contribute to the quality of its

work and representation of different opinions of sub-sectors. That consulting method of work

partly responds to the problem of incomplete representation of sectors in councils because

OCD representatives cannot represent all sectors or sub-sectors.

Interviews and analyses indicate that the work of the council is invisible to a great extent in

public and that the work of the council is not interesting to the media. Apart from that, the

media often do not have a positive attitude towards the work of organizations of the civil

society, primarily of NGOs. Although sessions of the Councils are public both in Croatia and in

Montenegro, the media rarely attend those events.

8. SERVICE AND SUPPORT TO THE COUNCIL’S WORK

In almost all the countries which have these councils there are also secretariats supporting the

work of the councils or offices/departments for cooperation with or development of OCDs,

such as in Croatia, Montenegro and Poland.

In Montenegro and in Croatia there are Offices which closely cooperative giving advice for civil

societies and at the same time offering them technical, administrative, expert and financial

support. While the Office in Montenegro is quite small and consists of the Head of the Office,

the Croatian Office has more than ten employees. As the above-mentioned evaluations and

reports indicate, logistic, administrative and expert support of the Office is a key factor of

success and sustainability of the Council. According to the interviewees from Montenegro and

Croatia, it is necessary to have one person dealing with collection and organization of material

which will be considered at the council’s sessions, distribution of that material to the council’s

members, preparation of minutes and monitoring agreed activities of the council entailing

further work. One of the key restrictions in the council’s work in has been noticed in the sphere

of mobilizing resources from OCDs themselves, which additionally demands engagement of

employees in the office.

Regardless of the conditioned activities, an important issue is the necessity of clear distinction

of the roles of the Council and the association in Croatia because both bodies in their respective

ways give expert opinions to the Government.

9. PLANNING AND CONTROL OF SUCCESSFUL COUNCIL’S WORK

Both the Croatian and Montenegrin Councils report once a year to their governments about

their work mainly describing activities but not evaluating what they have done. The Croatian

Council has made the Strategic plan for the period 2010–2012, but it does not stipulate the plan

of monitoring its work. Therefore it is difficult to monitor successful realization of plans

according to goals. The Evaluation of the Croatian Council emphasizes that improvement of

planning is a process with multiple benefits both for the council’s members themselves because

it contributes to their informing, education, motivation, mutual communication and

cooperation strengthening the work of this body.

The Croatian Rules of Procedure stipulate that state bodies should duly provide the drafts of

laws, sub-legislation acts and other program documents. However, both cases have shown

faults and delays in those processes.

Neither the Croatian nor the Montenegrin Council has planned internal or external evaluations

of their work. The Evaluation of the Croatian Council from 2012 is the first evaluation of the

Council since its establishment.

10. RECOMMENDATIONS

RECOMMENDATION 1 → The office should consider and initiate establishing the Council in

compliance with the Law on Government as those legal grounds already exist. The justification

should contain legal grounds, reasons for recommending the establishment of the Council

(advisory role in formulating and monitoring the future Strategy for cooperation and/or

development of motivating environment for the work of the civil society), composition of the

Council by the type of organizations from which it will select its members, dynamics of

reporting to the Government as well as means necessary for realizing the Decision.

RECOMMENDATION 2 → The Office should prepare the draft Decision about establishing the

Council which should also be submitted to the General Secretariat of the Government

immediately after initiating and submitting the Justification for establishing the Council. The

decision should contain the time mandate of the Council, the Council’s task, the Council’s

membership by the organization type (e.g. public administration, OCD, experts), a short

explanation of the manner of selecting the Council’s members, the number of members, the

procedure of recommending OCD members, the procedure of dismissal and so on).

The name of the Council2 should include the basic goals of the Council: on the one hand, inter-

sector cooperation (between public administration and the civil society), and on the other

hand, motivating environment for the work of OCDs. Both issues should be clearly defined by

the Council at the beginning of its work. It is recommended that the Council should be named

as the Council for cooperation and motivating environment for the development of

organizations of the civil society.

The Council’s tasks, regardless of the potentially restricted range of its work in the course of

the first years, should be broadly and strategically defined so that they could represent the

Council’s mandate in a longer period of time. It is recommended that the basic points should

include the following tasks:

2 Althought the focus of the Office for cooperation with the civil society has been mostly on non-government organizations and foundations, it is recommended that there should be a broader notion unifying these three categories.

- Giving opinions to the Government of the Republic of Serbia about strategic guidelines in the process of formulating the National strategy for cooperation (or creating motivating environment for the development of the civil society) and monitoring the realization of the National Strategy goals.

- Giving opinions about public policies referring and/or influencing the development of the civil society in the Republic of Serbia, and to cooperation with public and private sectors;

- Giving opinions about drafts of legislation and strategic framework influencing the development of the civil society in the Republic of Serbia, and about ways of including OCDs into debates on laws, strategies and programs in the Republic of Serbia (in cooperation with and on the basis of the analyses by the Office for cooperation with the civil society);

- Giving opinions to the Government about priorities of national programs of allotting financial support to projects and programs of OCDs from the funds of the state budget as well as the local administration budgets,

- Promoting values of volunteering and citizen initiatives at the national and local level.

The decision should also mention that the state administration bodies and ministries of the

Government of the Republic of Serbia as well as local administrations are obliged to submit to

the Council via the Office for cooperating with the civil society full information about its

decisions about financing OCDs in the Republic of Serbia for the previous budget year.

RECOMMENDATION 3 → The Office should prepare draft Rules of Procedure about the

Council’s work which will be adopted at the first session of the Council. The Rules of

Procedure should contain details about the Council’s work (who represents the Council,

responsibilities of the President and members, method of informing members about sessions,

method of deciding, notifying the public, consultations with the public, the seat of the Council,

planning and monitoring of the Council’s work).

RECOMMENDATION 4 → Selection of OCD members in the Council Croatian and Montenegrin

models are examples of good practice concerning the selection of the Council’s members: the

Government representatives are selected by ministries/government bodies they come from

while representatives of organizations of the civil society are selected by organizations

themselves according to the established criteria. The selection of the Council members in Serbia

should ensure a broad participation of OCDs so OCDs should be invited to appoint a person or

an organization (the person comes from) for the Council’s member and the publish all the valid

applications inviting OCD to vote for one applicant (and organization) outstanding in their

sphere of activities. The invitation should include a broad range of organizations of the civil

society without restricting it to NGOs, foundations and endowments.

RECOMMENDATION 5 → Selection of the Council’s chairperson: The Office should consider

possibility of choosing the chairperson from the expert public or Government department/team

(according to the largest number votes in the Council and via the generated list of names

according to consultations with OCDs and public administration), and that his/her deputy

should be from public administration or an OCD, on the rotation principle on a yearly basis

depending on the Chairperson’s sector. Facilitating skills should be desirable and important for

the Chairperson and his/her deputy. It would partly minimize potential misunderstandings

among the Council’s members. That or any other solution should be evaluated on a yearly

basis.

RECOMMENDATION 6→ Criteria for selecting the Council’s members from OCDs and public administration Montenegrin and Croatian criteria for selecting members are examples of good practice.

However, it is recommended that Serbia should follow the Montenegrin model and select the

Council’s members both as individuals and organizations for the sake of greater legitimacy. As

for selecting organizations, these are potential criteria: i) domain of the organization’s work (an

individual or organization is chosen for each domain), ii) that the organization has been

registered for minimum one year, iii) that its statute contains activities and goals from the

domain it applies for, iv) that it has realized one or more projects from a certain domain of over

10,000 EUR in the past 3 years, iv) that it has in the past 3 years realized activities in one or

more administration units in the Republic of Serbia (for better regional representation).

Since both organizations and individuals are chosen, these are the criteria for the member

applied by the organization: i) that he is a citizen of the Republic of Serbia, ii) that he has

experience in the domain of activities the organization applies for, iii) that he/she is not a

member of any political party’s body, a state or public official, that he/she is not in a

management position or a state official or an appointee in the state administration bodies, iv)

that he has a college degree and/or more than 10 years of suitable experience in the domain of

activities , which can be considered as equivalent.

As for members from state administration, the selection should be enabled of members before

the ministries and government bodies with the deciding power. In the beginning deputies of

should be appointed in case the selected members from administration cannot be present. It is

desirable for those deputy members to have authorizations for decision making.

RECOMMENDATION 7→ Number of members and represented sectors For the sake of more

dynamic work and greater efficiency in the Council’s work, the Office should limit the number

to maximum 19 members and minimum 13 members of the Council. This number should be the

same for the representatives of public administration and OCDs, while the Chairperson should

be selected from the expert public and his/her deputy from the list of members of public

administration or OCD.

Potential sectors could follow SEKO consultation mechanisms although preliminary analyses

shows that identified SEKO spheres are of equal significance for OCDs in Serbia. The potential

list of spheres could include those in which OCDs already have their role or in which their role is

being shaped at the moment, for example: i) safety of human and minority rights, ii) rule of law

and public administration, iii) education, iv) culture and media, v) labour and social policy, vi)

health insurance, vii) economic development (regional and rural), viii) environment protection.

European integrations are a horizontal topic concerning all the spheres.

When it comes to public administration, initially recommended ministries and government

bodies are: 1. Ministry of Justice and Public Administration, 2. Ministry of Labour and Social

Policy, 3. Ministry of Health, 4. Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development,

5. Office for human and minority rights, 5. Ministry of Finances and Economy, 6. Ministry of

Regional Development and Local Self-Government, 7. Ministry of Culture and Information and

8. Ministry of Spatial Planning, Construction and Ecology.

RECOMMENDATION 8→ Compensation for working in the Council and financial means for the

Council’s work: Compensation for the Council’s members from OCDs should be provided for

the sake of their equal participation in its work. Compensation should be between 50% and

70% of the average remuneration for the work of the Council’s members in Serbia.

It is also necessary to provide money for travel expenses and possibly for the accommodation

of those members who are not from Belgrade.

RECOMMENDATION 9→ The Rules of Procedure about the Council’s work in Serbia should

also stipulate regular planning consultations of the Council with OCD representatives in their

domains and sub-domains. That would positively influence the quality of the Council’s work, its

better positioning and also expressing opinions of different sub-sectors which will thus be able

to present their attitudes in and through the Council. It should also stipulate regular

consultations (twice a year and more often if necessary) with other close councils, such as the

Social and Economic Council, the Anti-Corruption Council, the National Councils for minorities

etc. The Council should also include consultations with OCD representatives of SEKO

mechanism.

RECOMMENDATION 10→ Without the support of the secretariat/office, the Council cannot

function in a sustainable way. Before the Council starts working in Serbia, it is necessary to

make a clearly defined job description for the person in charge of administrative and

organizational jobs of supporting the Council. That person should work full-time and be in

charge of other task in the work of the Office. According to the present profile of the Office

employees, jobs or organizer/coordinator/administrator could be done by a junior adviser. It is

also necessary to forecast the funds for printing materials and the Council’s communication

with the public. Last but not least, at the very beginning the role of the Council and of the Office

should be clearly distinguished so that their mandates will not overlap and that the public

should know who is in charge of certain tasks.

RECOMMENDATION 11→ The Rules of Procedure should also stipulate annual planning of

goals and activities and regular monitoring and evaluation of the Council’s work. The plan

should include media activities of the Council. The annual reports can be in the format of

analysis of achieving goals and activities in the Council’s work and thus represent a mini-

evaluation. Evaluations should be conducted before the end of the Council’s mandate and the

budget for the Council’s work should be envisioned.

RECOMMENDATION 12 → Prior to establishing the Council, consultations should be held with

the interested OCDs, representatives of public administration and experts about spheres of

work, methods of selecting the Council’s members etc. Notifications about these consultations

should be published on the Office’s website two weeks before the appointing the consultation

date.

LITERATURA:

1. Comparative Overview of European Standards in Participation, European Center for Non-profit Law, Hungary http://www.ecnl.org.hu/index.php?part=13publications&pubid=23

2. Evaluation of the Council for Civil Society Development in the period 2007–2012 in the Republic of Croatia, TACSO, January 2013. http://www.e-misija.info/novosti/evaluacija-Council-za-razvoj-civilnog-drustva/

3. Government – CSO Cooperation, European Center for Non-profit Law, Hungary http://www.ecnl.org.hu/index.php?part=13materials&datasent=1&topic=100&category=Research+and+policy+papers&keyword=

4. Report about work of the Council for cooperation of the Montenegro Government and non-government organizations in 2011, the Government of Montenegro, Council for cooperation of the Montenegro Government and non-government organizations, Podgorica, June 2012

5. Keeping the Momentum: Improving Civil Society Cooperation with Public Institutions in the Western Balkans and Turkey, TACSO, January 2013

6. Comments on the Law on Non-Government Organizations and other acts important for the work of NGOs in Montenegro, TACSO/OSCE, Podgorica 2012.

7. National Strategy of creating motivating environment for the development of the civil society from 2012 to 2016, Office for Associations of the Government of the Republic of Croatia

8. Decision about establishing the Council for Civil Society Development, the Government of the Republic of Croatia http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/2009_11_140_3404.html

9. Decision about establishing the Council for cooperation between the Montenegro Government and non-government organizations, the Government of Montenegro, Podgorica, April 2010.

10. The Rules of Procedure about the work of the Council for cooperation between the Montenegro Government, the Government of Montenegro, Podgorica, January 2011.

11. The Rules of Procedure Council for Civil Society Development, the Government of the Republic of Croatia http://www.uzuvrh.hr/userfiles/file/POSLOVNIK%20Council%20za%20razvoj%20CD.pdf

12. Attitudes of the Montenegrin citizens about NGOs, the Center for development of non-government organizations/IPSOS/TACSO, Podgorica 2012.

INTERVIEWS:

13. Interview with Aida Bagiċ, TACSO Resident Adviser in Croatia (April 2013, Skype conference) 14. Interview with Goran Đuroviċ, TACSO Resident Adviser in Montenegro (April 2013, Skype

conference) 15. Interview with Danka Latkovic, Director of the Office for Cooperation of the Montenegro

Government with NGOs (18th April 2013, Zagreb, Croatia) 16. Interview with Vesna Lendiċ-Kasalo, the Office of Associations of the Government of the

Republic of Croatia (18th April 2013, Zagreb, Croatia) 17. Interview with Slađana Novota, Chairperson of the Council for Civil Society Development in the

Republic of Croatia (18th April, 2013, Zagreb, Croatia) 18. Interview with Sunčica Sazdovska, TACSO Resident Adviser in Macedonia (April 2013, Skype

conference)