A team of individuals from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Romania, who are taking part in a programme funded by the TRANSFUSE Association and the College of Europe, together with NGO HIŽA have launched the competition ‘Express Europe through your Eyes’ for young individuals of South East Europe. As explained on the website - where the young artists have posted their art works as blogs - "the main goal of the competition is to provide space for young people from the region to express their views on the EU through different art forms, but also to gain information and knowledge about the EU." (more...)

The Kosovo Civil Society Foundation has published a Mapping and Analysis of Kosovar Civil Society. The download of the pdf-document from the website does not function, but you can get the document by contacting the Kosovo Civil Society Foundation. Here is an excerpt of the conclusion:

I just discovered that the SEE Oneworld Portal has published an article on my study on civil society in Kosovo a few months ago. The article has been published in English, Albanian, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian, and Macedonian language - it sums up quite well the results of my research and adds some further reflexions (e.g. on NGO laws/VAT).

The Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellows Program at the Washington, D.C.-based National Endowment for Democracy invites applications from candidates across Central-Eastern Europe and Eurasia for fellowships in 2008–2009. Established in 2001, the program enables democracy activists, practitioners, scholars, and journalists from around the world to deepen their understanding of democracy and to enhance their ability to promote democratic change. The program is intended primarily to support activists, practitioners, and scholars from new and aspiring democracies; distinguished scholars from the United States and other established democracies are also eligible to apply. Projects may focus on the political, social, economic, legal, and cultural aspects of democratic development and may include a range of methodologies and approaches. A working knowledge of English is required. The application deadline for fellowships in 2008–2009 is Thursday, November 1, 2007.

"Civil society developments in SEE" is the topic of a conference which will take place in Tutzing (Munich) in October 2007. As the conference language in German, here the announcement and the programme in German: Die Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft und die Akademie für politische Bildung Tutzing organisieren die 46. Internationale Hochschulwoche vom 8.-12.Oktober 2007 in der Akademie für Politische Bildung Tutzing zum Thema Zivilgesellschafliche Entwicklungen in Südosteuropa. Mehr Informationen bei: info@suedosteuropa-gesellschaft.com.

In January I gave a brief summary of the last kakanien-Emergenzen-workshop on "Self-Representation" I attended in Vienna. The papers of all Emergenzen-workshops organised by the kakanien project can be downloaded here. My paper (= an amended version of my presentation at the workshop in Vienna) deals with Self-representation of civil society organisations in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina (pdf, in German language). Here is the abstract:

Nansen Dialogue Network is organizing the sixth generation of the Virtual School of Dialogue, Democracy and Peaceful Conflict Resolution from April to June 2007 (9 weeks). The school will be organized in English. No fee is charged for participation. Deadline for applications: April 3rd, 2007.

The Worldbank has published a new study on Civil Society, Civic Engagement, and Peacebuilding (Thania Paffenholz, Christoph Spurk). Click on "more" to read the abstract.

Pondering over the self-representation of civil society in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina (a topic I will elaborate on next week in Vienna at the Emergenzen-conference), I came across an interesting comment on the webpage of the Guardian: "The myth of civil society":

Just came back from an exhibition opening in the Kosova Art Gallery (slightly outdated webpage, but you can download texts on comtemporary art in Kosovo), ... and read two articles about cultural events: the film festival in Sarajevo, which has now become a renowned institution in the cultural life of the Balkans (100 000 visitors this year according to the Guardian), and the Lost Highway Expedition. The latter is a journey organised by artists from all over the world on the route of the ex-Yugoslav projected Highway of Brotherhood and Unity (cf. this blog, 27.7.2006 + article in the New York Times, also printed in the Int. Herald Tribune).

Lost Highway Expedition: A massive movement of individuals will pass through Ljubljana, Zagreb, Novi Sad, Belgrade, Skopje, Pristina, Tirana, Podgorica and Sarajevo from July 30 to August 24 of 2006. The expedition will generate projects, art works, networks, architecture and politics based on knowledge found along the highway. Projects developed from the expedition will lead to events in Europe and the US. Lost Highway Expedition is the first event of Europe Lost and Found, a multi annual and three-phased project, conceived by the artist/architects Kyong Park and Marjetica Potrc. To participate, please check the web or email info@europelostandfound.net.

If you are interested in youth work, here is a study from last year on Youth Work in Bosnia-Herzegovina by Steffen Emrich, who has been working for Schüler helfen leben in Bosnia-Herzegovina: German, English, Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian.

Martina Fischer from the Berghof Research Centre for Constructive Conflict management (Berlin) will present the book she recently edited: Peacebuilding and Civil Society in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Ten Years after Dayton in Mediacentar, Kolodvorska 3, Sarajevo, on Monday, 27.2.2006 at 6 pm.

"Aid flows: are donors and NGOs working together or against each other?" ask the authors of the id21 development research platform of the UK Department for International Development and the Institute of Development Studies of Sussex University. Indeed, an interesting question - also in the Balkans...

Although Russia is out of the geographical focus of this blog, I found the debate on the new NGO draft law proposed by Putin quite interesting. This new draft law, which had been passed quasi unanimously in a first reading in the Duma on 23 November 2005, had been criticised by Western NGOs and governments, the EU, and the Council of Europe. Amnesty International comments that a new law project threatens the independence of civil society in Russia, as it would oblige all local and international NGOs to re-register.

Besides following what is happening in the Western Balkans on the political-economic level, I try to keep an eye on a subject I am particularly interested in: the development of local civil society. Recently, in the discussion following his opening speech of the OSCE conference "Dayton - Ten Years After: Conflict resolution and co-operation perspectives", Paddy Ashdown regreted that "while the international community is there [in Bosnia-Herzegovina], civil society has no room to grow".