The Civil Society Organizations (often indicated with the acronym CSOs) amounted to approximately 7,000 units today in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), according to the report written by Zoran Stojkovski of the Center for Institutional Development, CIRa (Civil Society in Macedonia at the crossroads: towards fighting for public needs and interests or securing its own sustainability; 2008).
As reported in the 2005 Report by the Macedonian Center for International Cooperation (MCIC) titled An assessment of Macedonian Civil Society: 15 Years of Transition – A Country Moving Towards Citizen Participation (this report falls within the CIVICUS Civil Society Index, an international project coordinated by CIVICUS), CSOs are mainly located in the Macedonian capital Skopje’s region (2,454 units), in the Western region (822), in the South-Western region (590) and in the Eastern region (557). The area with the less important presence of CSOs is instead the North-Western region, where they amount to approximately 400 units, but their presence per 1,000 citizens amounts to only 1.4, compared to the 4.5 CSOs/1,000 citizens in the capital’s area, the 4.1 ratio in the Western region, and the 1.9 ratio in the North-Eastern region (where CSOs are yet fewer in absolute terms: 309 units; 2003 data).
Moreover, as reported by the same 2005 Report by MCIC, CSOs are more in urban areas than in rural areas; the ratio of CSOs per thousand citizen can in fact be between approximately 6 times to even 37 times bigger in cities.
There are different types of organizations active in the Macedonian third sector. in particular, foundations amount approximately to 1% of all the CSOs spread in the Republic, that is to approximately 60 units (2003 data; Stojkovski, 2008).
There is Central Register of Republic of Macedonia for companies and other legal entities, such as civil associations and foundations; it is available at the following link: http://www.crm.com.mk/. The 1998 Law on Citizens’ Associations and Foundations ensures the registration of associations founded by foreigners, as well as the registration of foreign/international non-governmental organisations. The only difference between national and foreign/international organisations and foundations is that for the registration of entities belonging to the second group an opinion by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is required (source: www.efc.be).
By field of activity, in 2003 the largest percentage of CSOs in Macedonia were sports organizations (27%), followed by organizations for women (9%), the handicapped (7%), civic society (6%), environmental (6%), and rural development (6%; Stojkovski, 2008).
Totally, the 40.4% of the non-profit organizations are active in projects on marginalized groups (MCIC, 2005; 2004 data).
Sources of income
The external financial sources of the civil society organizations are split up as follows:
– 71% comes from international development programmes (Stojkovski, 2008; data for 2007); in particular, with the EU financial instrument CARDS, Macedonia received 3,050,000 € in 2002 and 2,100,000 € in 2003;
– approximately 12.5% comes from the government (8% by local and 4.5% by central government authorities; data for 2007 from the 2008 Stojkovski’s study). This financing draws on:
– the budget of the state directly: 243,000 € from the Ministry of Finance each year;
– reallocated resources from different ministries: 14,900,000 MKD in 2005 (less than 250,000 €), according to the Strategy for Cooperation of the Government with the Civil Sector (General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, 2006);
– a percentage (between the 12% and the 15%) of the total national lottery and other games of chance revenues, which is forwarded to the Association of Organisations of People with Disabilities and then distributed to 7 organisations-members of the Association, the Red Cross and sports organisations. For the year 2004, 75,000,000 MKD (approx. 1,220,000 EUR) were allocated to the third sector (MCIC, 2005);
– taxes;
– 7% comes from corporate giving (Stojkovski, 2008; 2007 data);
– 5% comes from individual giving (Stojkovski, 2008; 2007 data); despite this small figure, organisations do not try too hard to exploit this source, involving people in the society in order to receive money or in kind donations.
As far as the earned income (from membership and economic activities) of the CSOs is concerned, the 2008 Stojkovski’s report highlights that in 2006 it represented the 2% only of the total revenues of the CSOs, in descending trend compared to the 10% in 2003.
The legal environment
There is a variety of laws that support the growth of the non profit sector in the Republic of Macedonia.
First of all, according to the Art. 20 of the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia, citizens are guaranteed the freedom to associate so as to exercise and safeguard their economic, social, cultural and other rights and convictions, i.e. citizens can freely form citizen associations and choose to be or not be a part thereof. The Constitution limits the programmes or the activities of citizen associations which could be directed towards the forceful overthrow of the constitutional establishment of the Republic of Macedonia thus instigating or inviting military aggression or national, racial or religious hatred or intolerance. Also, the Constitution prohibits military or paramilitary associations not incorporated within the armed forces of the Republic of Macedonia (General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, 2006).
More in details, the Macedonian Law on Associations of Citizens and Foundations (1998; draft amendments were discussed in 2005; source: European Center for Nor-for-Profit Law – ECNL) regulates the functioning of Associations and Foundations, asserting that citizens can associate, i.e. establish citizen associations and foundations; the Law stipulates that citizen associations and foundations shall not perform political activities or utilize their resources or funds to engage in implementation of the objectives of political parties, be directly engaged in the election campaign, collect resources for the election campaign nor finance the political party (Article 3). Also citizen associations and foundations, i.e. their programmes and operations must not be directed towards the following: violent overthrow of the constitutional establishment of the Republic, instigating or inviting military aggression nor national, racial, religious hatred or intolerance (General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, 2006).
This Law does not encounter trade unions, chambers of commerce, political parties, churches and religious communities; by regulating Associations and Foundations, it considers only positive, non-political, non-profit and non business activities (General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, 2006).
The Law on donations and sponsorship (2006), instead, allows for tax deductions for companies and individuals that will donate on public areas, building in this way preconditions for the civil society sector to mobilize more local resources for their activities (Stojkovski, 2008). Also, the Law on Value Added Tax (2003) allows for tax-free import of goods from foreign donors to domestic civil society organizations (General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, 2006).
Moreover, in the Law on the Government of the Republic of Macedonia it is written that the Government of the Republic of Macedonia makes efforts to support the development of the institutions of the civil sector (General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, 2006).
Last, there is a Law on Volunteerism (2007) that regulates this activity: it introduces a legal definition of volunteering, distinguishing it from employment or other kinds of labour relationships. It also lists the rights and the obligations of volunteers, and determines and regulates foreigners’ volunteering. Moreover, it introduces tax exemptions on reimbursements issued for volunteers. This law was amended at the end of 2008 to ensure that volunteers’ food and travel expenses would be covered (the law was in fact indirectly modified by amendments in the tax system) and to include the possibility of volunteering in local government institutions (source: European Center for Nor-for-Profit Law – ECNL; all the laws are available at the following International Center for Not-for-Profit Law – ICNL and ECNL links: http://www.icnl.org/knowledge/library/showRecords.php?country=Macedonia; http://www.ecnl.org.hu/index.php?part=13materials&datasent=1&topic=0&category=&keyword=macedonia).
The relationship State – third sector
Responsible for the government for dealings with the non profit sector is the Unit for Cooperation with Non-Governmental Organizations under the Sector for Policies Analysis and Coordination established in 2004 (General Secretariat of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, 2006; Stojkovski, 2008). Its purpose is to gain credibility and to develop institutional cooperation between the Government and the Civil Society Organizations, which will contribute to the development of the civil society sector.
There is also a Contact Office between the NGOs and the Assembly, set up in 2004 as well (Stojkovski, 2008); its main aim is to establish connections between the citizens and the bodies of the Assembly by using the overall resources of the civil sector (conclusions, researches, etc.) in order to increase the influence CSOs can exert in the policy and in the decision-making process.
