Experts point to flaws in mechanisms of state support for NGOs in Russia

Kremlin and St. Basil's

MOSCOW. March 27 (Interfax) – The existing system of support for nongovernmental organizations in Russia lacks transparency in many respects which obstructs the strengthening of the role of civil society in Russian life.

The conclusion can be drawn from the report “Third sector in Russia: the current state and possible development models” compiled by the Fund for Civil Society.

“The absence of established transparent mechanisms of interaction of civil society and the state are not only a barrier to the strengthening of the role of civil society in the country’s life but it also obstructs the public understanding and public support for the activities of existing institutions and organizations of civil society,” the report says.

Experts summed up the main flaws of the existing system of support for NGOs: the nontransparency of mechanisms of financing, the absence of a sufficient amount of information about amounts assigned to specific NGOs, the nontransparency of the selection of parties responsible for organizing and conducting contests for presidential grants, a poor system of accountability for grant-based programs.

The report names as the most acute problems of the non-profit sector: the shortage of accessible financing, the absence of open reliable information about its possible sources, and the deeply-rooted public conception of the high degree of corruption related to financial support from the state.

Among the measures that are expected to help to change the situation experts suggest the formation of a single information floor for the operations of “the third sector” as the report describes socially-oriented NGOs.

For instance, the authors favor the formation of a single database on grant-based and other programs implemented at the expense of state coffers.

Experts say bureaucratic obstacles to the access of NGOs to state financing should be lifted. “The mechanism of state support must be simple, open, equally accessible and transparent,” says the report largely dealing with the international experience of financing NGOs.

The report says that at present the Economic Development Ministry “is the only federal ministry that observes a transparent procedure of financing socially-oriented NGOs.”

“The same cannot be said about other ministries which is well seen from the distribution of funds for the support of such NGOs in 2013. It is very difficult to count how much money all ministries have assigned for the support of concrete socially-oriented NGOs,” the report says.

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