From all the countries around the Black Sea, Romania has by far the strongest civil society (MacGoy, 2019), the largest number of NGOs, which have been both part in large EU or international networks and gained experience locally, in multi-million Euro projects and with a large diversity of networks. Romanian NGOs have proven their sustainable business model and resilience not only by working well internationally, but by partnering even with government when crisis situations required it (Buzasu&Marczewski, 2020).
Apart from Moldova, where CSOs situation has seen improvements, the situation of CSOs in all the other BS region countries has either remained the same (Georgia) or became worse (Ukraine, Armenia) (CSO Meter, 2020) as well as in Turkey (ArabNews, 2021).
Author: Camelia Crisan, Ph.D., Researcher, Progress Foundation
This article is part of the Call for Articles Series “Building Knowledge for CSO Cooperation in the Black Sea Region”, in the context of the project “Building CSO Capacity for Regional Cooperation within the Black Sea Region”, implemented by FOND, and funded by the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation (BST), a project of the German Marshall Fund. The opinions expressed in this publication are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views those of the Black Sea Trust or its partners.
