State institutions and representatives of civil society initiated a number of actions aimed at fostering the implementation of the Civil Society Strategy for 2012-2015. In this connection, a working group was created in Chisinau and there were invited foreign experts.
Contacted by IPN, the chairman of the National NGO Council of Moldova Iuliana Cantaragiu said they now work on the legislation providing that 2% of the income tax should be transferred to a nongovernmental organization. The mechanism is to be implemented from 2014.
“There were studied the models of implementing such strategies in Hungary and Slovakia. A visit was paid to Slovakia to monitor the working process. A subcontracted consultant from Slovenia came to Chisinau to help work out the legal framework,” said Iuliana Cantaragiu.
As to the contracting of social services by NGOs, a working group consisting of functionaries and civil society representatives was constituted at the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family to formulate amendments to the legislation concerning the accrediting of NGOs so that they are able to provide social services.
“We must take into account the fact that the strategy came into force one year later and there is no unit for cooperation with civil society yet. Little headway is made in such areas as decisional transparency and participation of civil society in governance,” stated Iuliana Cantaragiu.
According to her, the implementation of the strategy depends a lot on the political situation in the country as some of the policies need to be adjusted and when there is political instability it is harder to ensure the implementation of the strategy in time.
