NON-PROFIT SECTOR IN SERBIA
- A Brief Review of the Current Situation -

According to the research of the non-profit sector in Serbia, the historical preconditions for its emergence and development may be traced back to the late 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, in the following environments: traditional forms of rural solidarity, Serbian Orthodox Church influence and charitable work in many humanitarian, educational and other societies during the first decades of the 20th century and until the Second World War.

After the Second World War, all the non-profit organizations, endowments, legacies and funds were nationalized and confiscated. New organizations that were established at that time had to work within the communist system and were under the state control. Until 1990, there were about 19,000 different non-profit organizations, but with no new types of NGOs, such as the human rights organizations, peace groups, ecology associations, or other local organizations dealing with broader social problems in the public sphere. Today, there are about 25,000 NGOs in the FR Yugoslavia, including the organizations from the previous period.

Upon the legalization of social and political pluralism in 1990 and an enactment of the Law on Association of Citizens in Associations, Social Organizations and Political Parties Established on the Territory of the SFRY, a new period has begun for the third sector. Since then, the number of NGOs has been constantly on the rise. This is indicated by the data on registered NGOs.

Since 1990, when free association and organization of citizens were legalized, 1,344 new NGOs have been registered in FRY by the end of 1999. In three years (until the end of 1996 695 NGOs were registered) the number of NGOs has doubled.

Data on NGOs registered at the federal level.

All of these NGOs were established under very difficult circumstances (war, sanctions and inflation) by people who had limited experiences with the activities of such organizations. A major increase in NGOs was noted after the civil protest of 1996-97, when the most of the student and youth organizations were established. Since then, interest in NGOs has increased significantly. Between 1997 and the beginning of 2000, significant progress was made in developing the nongovernmental sector infrastructure. NGOs that appeared at the beginning of the nineties succeeded in establishing the infrastructure for long-term and strategic functioning and in consequence to this their results improved. They enabled further spreading of similar organizations in smaller cities and towns in Serbia that were just a few until 1997. Today this picture is entirely different, since the number of NGOs in Serbia is constantly increasing.

1. The Number and Type of NGOs

Besides major cities (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Subotica, Nis, Podgorica) which host the majority of NGOs, new ones have appeared in Vrsac, Kikinda, Pancevo, Cacak, Kraljevo, Valjevo, Uzice, Kragujevac, Knjazevac, Leskovac, Bor, Novi Pazar, Pirot and Smederevo. The main strongholds for the development of the sector are the cities in which the opposition assumed power after the local elections 1997 (i.e. 33 cities with about 3,100,000 inhabitants or half of the entire electorate of Serbia).

3. Funding Sources

4. The Development of Infrastructure and Means of Communication
a) Advancement in infrastructure and communication:
Number of NGOs with a fax machine


b) Number of NGOs with e-mail


c) Number of NGOs with the web presentation

5. Main Problems
The general problems of the non-profit sector are even increasing with the current political situation. The main problems are as in the previous years:

1. The repressive and indifferent attitude of state bodies towards the non-profit sector (e.g. accusation of hostile activities, espionage and foreign mercenary activity);
2. The current status problems of NGOs and the necessity to pass the new laws that would regulate the establishment and activity of NGOs;
3. The unstable and inadequate financing, as well as a lack of fundraising and management skills and adequate equipment;
4. The lack of trained professionals able to work in NGOs (organizational structure is established on insufficiently educated staff with the lack of contemporary knowledge in organization management.

6. The Recommendations for the Development and Building of NGOs in Serbia
If we compare this latest research of NGOs with the earlier data obtained by the CDNPS, we may conclude the following:

First, the number of non-governmental organizations has doubled during the last three years. This happened not only in major cities, but also in smaller towns.

Second, the legal status of non-governmental organizations is unsatisfactory, because the laws from the previous system, unadjusted to the Constitution, are still applied. Furthermore, there are no laws that regulate the work of international non-governmental organizations and no tax regulations that would prompt the development of the non-profit sector. If the political situation in the country does not change, the tendency of the current non-democratic regime will be to adopt some more restrictive laws on NGOs.

Third, the dominant areas of activity of the non-profit sector in Serbia are the protection of environment, humanitarian problems, development of democracy and human rights and various community building actions.

Fourth, the cooperation and networking of NGOs has been significantly improved. About 40 national “problem” networks have emerged, along with 15 local city networks. Besides an increasing number of NGOs, the main positive phenomenon of the sector development during the last several years has been the networking and linking of NGOs on various levels (both horizontally and vertically). Apart from these networks, a functional network without the formal membership, but developing the non-profit sector has been established (The Forum of the Yugoslav NGOs).[2] Joining forces and networking on all levels has enabled NGOs to become an indispensable agent of social change in the country.

Fifth, the possibility of normal communication between organizations is still unsatisfactory, because 54% of organizations use fax machines, 61.7 % use e-mail, while only 14.4% NGOs have their own web sites.

Sixth, the financial sources are very limited, because:

1. the aid generated from the domestic economy is small (ruined economy),
2. the individual donations are made, but very small due to the population poverty,
3. the aid coming from international foundations is still limited to humanitarian work and problems. For example, there are important ecological problems in the country and significant number of NGOs, but only one international organization supports ecological projects in a limited way (REC).
4. the budgets of municipalities, republic and federation are not available to everybody, but allocated according to the political criteria. There are no public competitions, so that one does not know who receives these resources.

All this indicates that NGOs in Serbia are in the phase of development, which represents the critical moment of their further survival, because many of them will not be able to surmount the forthcoming crises caused by many problems.

Two scenarios of their further development may be anticipated – a positive and a negative ones. The negative scenario is based on the possibility that the country remains isolated, with citizens and international organizations losing their interests in investing in the non-profit sector development in Serbia. The other scenario, which is more realistic and probable, relies on the estimates that the interest in investing in the non-profit sector, civil society development and democratic processes will be increased, partly due to the limited presence of international organizations in Serbia, and partly due to the reality and fact that problems may not be solved without the supporting the positive, democratic processes.

At this moment, the most urgent support for the development of the non-profit sector in Serbia should be directed to:

1. Supporting and financing the projects related to the humanitarian work, ecological actions, projects of democratization (control of the elections, new law drafts, schools for democracy and civil society, building the local communities), projects for the improvement of the media visibility of NGOs (advancing new modes of communication), public actions.
2. Building the infrastructure of NGOs. All the research of non-profit sector indicates that infrastructure is the main weakness of the non-profit sector in Eastern Europe, notwithstanding the support directed to this area. Accordingly, the situation in the FRY is even worse.
3. Aiding the education for work in NGOs. The long-term tradition of passivity and closed society led to the specific forms of behavior and opinion that may not respond to the numerous questions and demands of the complex social circumstances. There is a huge lack of experience and knowledge concerning the forms of activity in NGOs, so that it is necessary to organize and help the programs of education and training for professionals and volunteers in NGOs related to fundraising, writing project proposals, strategic planning, management and crisis solution.

Belgrade, August 2000.

Zarko Paunovic