The nongovernmental organizations in Moldova are not encouraged to develop social entrepreneurship and this hinders the development of this sector or even leads to the disappearance of NGOs. Most of the impediments come from state or inspection institutions, which interpret the social entrepreneurship as a business similar to Ltds, IPN reports.

Aliona Turcanu, expert and consultant of the project “Social Entrepreneurship for Persons with Disabilities”, said that social entrepreneurship is regarded as a business aimed at obtaining incomes for members, as the Ltds. But this is not so. In such conditions, the businesses initiated by certain NGOs or the businesses presented as social enjoy no tax concessions on the part of the state. At the same time, the members of civil society are put in the same conditions as all the other economic entities.

“Civil society makes effort to delimit between the economic entities that work to make profit for the own owners and those who work to solve community problems and channel the own profit to deal with community needs,” said Aliona Turcanu, adding that social entrepreneurship is not well defined in Moldova.

The project “Social Entrepreneurship for Persons with Disabilities” is implemented with the support of the United States Agency for International Development within the Moldova Civil Society Strengthening Program that is implemented by FHI360.