Montenegro: Nenad Koprivica, Executive director of Cedem

Nenad Koprivica, Executive director of the Centre for Democracy and Human Rights, Cedem, a Montenegrin NGO founded in 1997 dedicated to the promotion of democracy and the strengthening of civil society through research, networking and lobbying.

CEDEM is one of Montenegro?s leading non profit organizations. What are the main challenges it faces?
Since CEDEM was founded, in 1997, our goal to promote democracy and human rights has faced numerous and different challenges. And only our commitment to fulfill our goal has enabled us to assist Montenegro in its transitional process. The challenges we face today are somewhat different now, mainly because the issue of statehood and the state context changed, and was solved, two years ago with Montenegro?s independence, reached through a citizens referendum. Independence has meant that one of the burning issues, that for years created division and many other problems, ended in a democratic and civilized way. But independence did not bring an end to all of Montenegro?s problems. Montenegro is, in many ways, a very polarized state: on one side there are the pro independence-ists and on the other the union-ists. All this must be left behind if Montenegrin society wants to achieve better standards and European and Euro-Atlantic integration.

That Montenegrin society is still a highly politicized one is demonstrated by a situation that CEDEM and its representatives found themselves in just recently. For almost a decade CEDEM?s analytical team, made up of internationally renown methodologists and numerous other professionals, have performed regular public opinion polls. It so happened that, as in many other times previously including the national referendum on the issue of statehood, we accurately predicted the outcome of the elections. But instead of being congratulated on our excellent prediction skills and high professionalism, political parties that weren?t satisfied with their own election results attacked us and attempted to discredit our work! This shows a serious lack of political culture in all the political parties, and especially the opposition ones.

But, of course, this does not stop us from continuing to try to reach our goal, which is the full democratization of Montenegrin society. It is not an easy task, and it hasn?t been one so far, but we are determined to reach our goal and to overcome all the obstacles in our way.

What?s like to be a non profit leader in your country?
There are a huge number of NGO?s in Montenegro, over 3,000 of them, due to the very liberal law that makes it easy to establish an NGO. Being a leader within Montenegrin ?third sector? is real challenge. It requires its members to invest a great deal of effort, but the results and words of appraisal we receive from our partners within Montenegro, from Europe and from the rest of the world encourages us to persist. The third sector is striving to make Montenegro part of Europe and to accepted all the standards which are required by the EU.

Who are CEDEM?s stakeholders?
Our main stakeholders are international organizations, different foreign foundations dealing with democratization and human rights. We have earned the reputation of being a very reliable source, especially as far as opinion polls are concerned, so the media pays a lot of attention to our work. Many of our publications and newsletters are used by Montenegrin and foreign students as additional literature for writing essays, masters and doctoral thesis.

Both Euclid, and Vita Europe are trying to build a common culture and identity for European civil society: What could Montenegro?s non profit sector bring to it?
I think that Montenegrin civil society can significantly contribute to building a common culture and identity for European civil society in terms of our experience in fighting for a better and fully democratic society. We have had to overcome many obstacles and this track record has prepared us to be able to create such an identity. Our civil society members share Europe?s values, so I see our integration as being very feasible.

What make?s Montenegro?s civil society unique?
Perhaps what sets Montenegro apart from Europe is the amount of NGOs. There are currently over 3,000 registered NGOs, although not all are active, in a country that has a population of a little over 650,000. I think this is quite unique. Other aspects are very similar to other civil societies in post socialist and transitional societies, especially in terms of final goals and the means to reach them. It is also important to note that at times, especially before state independence, NGOs have played a more important role even than the opposition political parties. This was because the opposition behaved rather more like opposition to the state, but not to the government, and because NGOs had better developed capacities.

You mentioned that there are around 3 thousand registered NGO?s. How many of these are active and how much of the GDP do they produce?
Only between 100 and 150 NGOs are active in Montenegro. Unfortunately it is not possible to get information about the percentage of GDP that is produced by NGOs.

Does local civil society have a magazine or website that gives voice to its best practices?
Just recently in Montenegro a ?Coalition of NGO?s ? Common to the goal?, which gathers over 200 Montenegrin NGO?s was founded. The coalition?s main goal is to promote Montenegrin civil society organizations and, through coordination and cooperation, to contribute to making sure that third sector voices are better heard. Generally however there are few magazines and web sites dedicated to NGOs activities.

More info
www.cedem.co.me