Interfax: Moscow Helsinki Group, but not Memorial, gets Russian presidential grant

Kremlin and Saint Basil's File Photo

(Interfax – Moscow, October 27, 2014) Leading human rights organizations Moscow Helsinki Group and the For Human Rights movement were among the recipients of presidential grants as a result of a bid process held by the Civil Dignity organization.

“Among well-known organizations, Moscow Helsinki Group received R1.8m [about 34,000 dollars at the current exchange rate] and the For Human Rights movement received over R6m,” Ella Pamfilova, Russian human rights ombudsperson and chairman of the bid committee, told Interfax on Monday [27 October].

According to Pamfilova, other well-known non-commercial organizations [NGOs] receiving presidential grants include the Moscow Centre for Prison Reform and the Independent Legal Expert Council.

“A number of renowned organizations did not apply for grants this time. Many organizations already received grants as a result of the bid processes in autumn and spring. For example, the Golos-Ural foundation already received two large grants for projects that are still ongoing. Now we are prioritizing regional organizations that have applied for the first time,” said Pamfilova.

She said that the Memorial society had not received a grant this time due to certain disputes with the Ministry of Justice, which had applied to the Russian Supreme Court for Memorial to be liquidated. According to Pamfilova, regional divisions of Memorial had received presidential grants after previous bid processes.

According to statistics released by Vedomosti newspaper, over 100 organizations received presidential grants totalling R182m. In total, over 300 applications were submitted. The Civil Dignity website promised to publish the full list on Monday.

Grants distributed under this bid process are provided for one year, and next autumn the non-commercial organizations will need to account for the total costs of implementing their projects, Pamfilova told Interfax.

No non-commercial organizations included on the list of foreign agents submitted applications to participate in this bid process, she said. “Many of them had been winners of previous processes. If we talk about potential foreign agents – organizations with foreign financing – they do feature among the winners of this bid process,” Pamfilova said.

Mikhail Fedotov, member of the bid committee and head of the presidential human rights council, told Interfax on Monday: “The committee was guided by the same principles that guide many grantors across the world: to support primarily small organizations, primarily those working in the provinces. Another principle is not to support organizations that already have grants.”

Fedotov said that it had not been an aim of the bid committee not to give grants to non-commercial organizations recognized as foreign agents. “That was not one of the principles we worked to,” he said.

“It is now very important to diversify and increase financing to non-commercial organizations. There need to be more grantors than there are currently, in order to finance different projects. In addition to presidential grants, corporate, private grants need to be made available. We have four thousand charitable foundations, but only a few dozen are making themselves heard,” Fedotov said.

Fedotov concluded that, by his estimation, the number and amount of state grants reserved for the civilian sector also needs to be raised.

 

Comment