Enabling Environment for Civil Society Development

Through this component, TACSO 3 contributes to the improvement of the enabling environment for civil society development, and also creates better conditions for dialogue between civil society and other stakeholders in the Western Balkans and Turkey.

TACSO 3 provides space where the two groups of actors – governments and civil society at large– meet and interact, exchange their best practices and knowledge, and also create common dialogue and agendas for change. Through its enabling environment component, TACSO 3 pays special attention to those interventions that have an overarching regional importance.

In order to obtain necessary results, the TACSO team focuses on the following tasks:

• Ensure Citizens and CSOs are actively consulted and involved in processes related to the enabling environment and EU pre-accession at regional and national level;
• Establish functional links and coordination mechanisms with the national Resource Centres and national Technical Assistance to Government offices for civil society;
• Facilitate the co-operation between civil society and the government in the absence of national Technical Assistance directed at capacity of Government bodies;
• Set up advisory bodies in the partner countries and at regional level to steer TACSO 3 and consult the proposed services with main relevant stakeholders;
• Transfer successful practices of Civil Society – Government co-operation at national level to the local level and vice-versa.

Enabling environment for civil society development comprises the need for long-term, consistent and systematic work on promoting enabling environment issues and ensuring they are mainstreamed into the decision and policy-making process.