Challenges and good practices for NGOs in Bulgaria

The main challenges and problems faced by civil society organizations in Bulgaria, as well as best practices and solutions they have implemented will be analyzed as a part of an international study on the state of civil society. Main goal of the research is to support civil society organizations by exchanging experiences in facing problems and solutions they come up with. Analysis in Bulgaria will be implemented by the BlueLink Foundation as a part of a regional study of the EU-Russia Civil Society Forum (CSF) funded by the European Commission.

"After several years of the Forum's existence and many discussions among its member-NGOs from different countries, we have noticed that there are many cases where organizations encounter the same problems and challenges, whether they come from Hungary, Russia or Italy. Thus, the idea of  the state of civil society research in different countries emerged. We'd also like to try to find good practices and strategies against the negative trends that can be shared and used by NGOs in different countries", explains Ksenia Vahrusheva, a member of the Steering Committee of the Forum and a head of the study in Bulgaria.

The project will be implemented until the end of 2017. The data analysis will be published in an analytical report in both English and Russian. The report will be presented at the annual meeting of the Forum in May 2018 in Sofia. Besides Bulgaria, this year the CSF researchers are doing the same study in Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands and Russia. In 2016 the CSF prepared a report on the state of civil society in Germany, Spain, Hungary, Poland and Russia.

The EU-Russia Civil Society Forum is a network of 153 non-governmental organizations from the member states of the European Union and Russia, which share the values of pluralistic democracy, rule of law, human rights and social justice. The ideal goal of the Forum is to enhance cooperation between civil society in Russia and the EU. BlueLink is a member of the Forum since 2015.