“People in Moldova have views that are different from public authorities’.” Info-Prim Neo interview with Sergiu Ostaf, director of the Resource Center for Human Rights, from the series “19 years of Independence”

[ - Did the Moldovan civil society and the Republic of Moldova have similar development scenarios in these 19 years of Independence?] - There was practically no civil society in 1991-1993. In that period, we had large national organizations that were controlled by the public authorities. In general, the civil society organizations passed through a number of stages in their development. The NGOs rose significantly in number in 1996-1998, after the law on public organizations was adopted in 1996. There were several thousands of organizations at national level in the period. A second stage was witnessed in 2001-2003, when the number of local, community organizations increased. It was due to the technical assistance coming from abroad and a number of programs of the Social Investment Fund that stimulated citizen activism at local and community levels. After 2008, the civil society organizations have developed qualitatively and become more professional, realizing better their roles. We now have over 7,000 organizations, including several hundreds of active organizations that facilitate dialogue on a number of public issues and contribute to the society’s development. There are hundreds of organizations that provide social, healthcare and organizational services. We can now say that civil society is sufficiently developed and plays a rather important public role. Civil society provided solutions for developing the country and helped realize a number of problems. [ - Did civil society’s expectations and achievements coincide in the period?] - The expectations of civil society are always changing. Our expectations from the 1990s are different from the present ones. The realities are also different. However, our expectations of what should happen are like ‘a force motrice’ for those on whom the development of society depends. [ - What did civil society do to contribute to the building of the state?] - Civil society played three main roles: pluralized the opinions, tempered certain attempts to follow incorrect paths, and provided pragmatic solutions to a number of problems. The people in Moldova now have views that are different from the authorities’. In other states like Russia, society is dominated by the opinions stated by the representatives of the public authorities. It is Moldovan civil society’s merit that the people’s views are distinct and do not depend on public authorities’ and politicians’ stances. In a number of cases, civil society expressed viewpoints that were more beneficial to the public interests. We have pluralism of opinion in our country. Civil society also tempered exaggerated and inappropriate interests, when the Government approved certain policies on the country’s development course. It explained the unreasonableness of these courses, stopping certain incoherent developments. The NGOs played a pragmatic and instrumental role in implementing certain solutions to social problems and proposed appropriate practices in different situations. [Svetlana Cojocaru, Info-Prim Neo]