Foreign funding is no obstacle to provision of state grants to NGOs – expert

Kremlin and St. Basil's

(Interfax – MOSCOW, August 26, 2013) Non-governmental organizations that received funding from abroad are on the lift of recipients of grants from the state, Maria Slobodskaya, president of the Institute of Civil Society Issues and a member of the Russian Public Chamber, said.

“The issue of who received foreign funding or did not receive foreign funding was not even considered. We looked at the content of the proposed activities. Organizations that received foreign financing are also among the winners (of state grants). There are a lot of them,” Slobodskaya told Interfax on Monday.

Slobodskaya reiterated that the grant distribution operator did not take into account the issue of foreign funding when the money was distributed.

The final results of the grant distribution will be announced on August 30, Slobodskaya said.

A tender commission of an NGO operator distributing grants to NGOs working in the sphere of civil society development met on Friday.

According to a report published on the Public Chamber website, the NGO operator Institute of Civil Society Issues received over 1,200 applications for state grants. The application deadline was July 15. The results of the tender were to be announced by August 23.

Comment