Editorial - How to identify grassroots organisations

Yugoslavia has shown that effective cooperation between civic groups and donors can play a very significant role in the public policy arena. There is perhaps no other country in Europe where civil society organizations have played such a key role in changing the country’s destiny.

In my view, having been privileged to cooperate with Yugoslav/Serbian NGOs over recent months, theirs was the best non-partisan election-related campaign developed by NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe. There have been several outstanding NGO campaigns in CEE countries in the last decade, but none on so large a scale or so creative. Learning from their counterparts in other countries, Serbian NGOs developed more than 100 projects to motivate and educate voters, monitor the electoral process and energize democratic forces. Most of all, they spread courage, hope and the desire to join Europe.

Yugoslavia also provided the best example of regional cooperation in democracy- building. Yugoslav/Serbian NGOs learned from the Slovak OK’98 campaign and from the 1999 campaign of Croatian NGOs for free and fair elections. NGO activists from neighbouring countries provided training and other practical support.
 
Finally, it seems to me, it was the best example of donors’ cooperation in democracy assistance in CEE. Western donors’ support of election-related projects was a critical factor in their success. Since spring 2000 several donors, public and private, have demonstrated a marked willingness to share information and work together.

One thing this experience has highlighted is the great gulf between European and US donors in supporting advocacy and democracy-building projects. But more practical support is now urgently needed. Both in Yugoslavia and in other Balkans countries, people are still suffering great hardship. Will European funders now step in? The Balkans will surely be the ultimate testing ground of European solidarity.

Pavol Demes
Director for CEE, German Marshall Fund of the United States