Our Foundation started its activity - as a member of the Carpathian Foundation Network - in the Carpathian Euroregion 20 years ago. On this occasion we organized an international conference entitled ’The role of civil society…’. The past, present and future of the Carpathian Euroregion and the Carpathian Foundation were discussed in various panels; country directors of the Carpathian Foundations, representatives of donor organizations, development and grassroots organizations expressed their opinion regarding the main challenges of the Central and Eastern European civil society over the past 20 years.
Arild Moberg Sande, Chargé d'Affaires of Royal Norwegian Embassy to Hungary, opened the conference with his speech. Currently, Norway is the most important donor country to Central Europe and Hungary through the EEA and Norwegian Fund. The Chargé d'Affaires spoke about the conflict between the donor countries (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein) and the Hungarian government and about the main achievements of the Norwegian NGO Grant.
Experts looked back on the significance of establishment of the Carpathian Foundation and the Carpathian Euroregion concerning the past, present and future. Country directors of the Carpathian Foundation – Romania, Ukraine and Hungary presented their experiences about programs that helped to keep their sustainability and what sort of challenges they will face with. Representatives of the donor organizations discussed the grant systems of Hungary and the European Union and the trends of life of civil sector from the beginning till nowadays. We could hear interesting lectures from representatives of development organizations working on the countryside and grassroots organizations who addressed what kind of roles of the governments and the civic sector have in the society.
At the end of the conference Sándor Köles, Chair of our Board of Directors, summarized that civil organizations in the Carpathian Euroregion face common problems and challenges thus it is very important to exchange experiences and good practices on cross-border level in order to develop. We would like to thank all of the participants for their contribution to the successful implementation of the conference.
Agenda of the conference is available here.
Pictures of the conference are available here.
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