Selska cesta 112a
10000 Zagreb
Croatia
- Democracy and community development
- Environment/Sustainable development
- Human rights
- International/Cultural relations
CROSOL is a platform of Croatian NGOs active in the field of international development cooperation with over 30 member organizations. Our operative staff consists of 2 full time employees, but a lot of our capacity and activities comes from our member's participation and cooperation. Official governing bodies of CROSOL are the Assembly and the Steering Board. The Assembly consists of all member organizations of the Platform. The Steering Board consists of 3 individuals (from member organizations) who are elected at the Assembly for 2-year terms. Platform Coordinator reports to the Board and Assembly, and is also a legal representative of CROSOL. The President of the Board is a legal representative, as well. Day-to-day work is handled by the operational team managed by the Platform Co-ordinator. The majority of our funding comes from EU sources (EACEA, Europe for Citizens, DG DEVCO etc.). During the past 2 years our budget was as follows: 2019: ~214.167 EUR 2020: ~216.000 EUR We are members of CONCORD Europe and we also cooperate with other EU NGO networks such as European Civic Forum, Civil Society Europe, EURODAD etc. Our main partners are NGOs active in area of development cooperation from other EU member states (Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, Portugal, Germany, Romania, Finland...), as well as Croatian NGOs in this area and areas such as human rights, rule of law, democratic transition, women's rights and sustainable development.
Objectives of the Platform are: – building and strenghtening the capacities of civil society organizations (hereinafter: OCD) for providing international development cooperation and humanitarian aid; – if necessary, to be the link between the ministry that is responsible for international development cooperation and humanitarian aid, and the projects of international development cooperation and humanitarian aid of the OCD; – to participate and influence on the improvement, shaping, implementation and evaluation policies of the Republic of Croatia, the European Union and other international bodies like the United Nations and others, from the area of international development cooperation and humanitarian aid; – to deliberate and improve international development cooperation of the OCD inside and outside of Croatia about values, principles, methods, and standards of actions; – to articulate and affirm activist initiatives and organizations of civil society from southeast Europe toward the EU in the area of development cooperation and humanitarian aid; – to promote education for development and international solidarity; – to promote international development cooperation and solidarity.
Some of our main activities are monitoring the official development assistance (ODA) implementation in Croatia, advocating for policies in area of international development cooperation and humanitarian aid, as well as advocating for the fundamental values of the EU. In the past 2 years we have been working on several projects, of which the most important is ‘Towards an open, fair and sustainable Europe in the world – EU Presidency Project 2019-2021’, implemented by the Finnish NGO platform for development Fingo, the Romanian platform FOND, the Croatian Platform CROSOL and CONCORD, the European NGO Confederation for relief and development. The goal of the project was to increase public support for a European Union which puts the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, development cooperation, human rights, and civil society space at the centre of its work. During this project, we also implemented a subgranting programme in Croatia for 1) NGOs and 2) youth organizations and schools. During the project we also founded an informal platform of NGOs called "Forum 2020" During the past few years we implemented several other projects such as "More Democracy for More Europe (MoDeM)", and "Snapshots from the Borders" (both funded by EU). MoDeM project was focused on combatting the trend of illiberal democracies in EU, by promoting common values such as freedom of speech, tolerance, rule of law and citizen participation. We are currently cooperating with EURODAD on the project of strengthening networks of development NGOs.
CROSOL as a platform of over 30 members, and also as a coordinator of an informal NGO network called Forum 2020, is very well connected with other civil society organizations in Croatia. We have a strong cooperation and partnership with many NGOs in the country which will allow for dissemination of ALF activities and inclusion of a large number of new organizations/partners. Our existing partnerships could help ALF to expand its scope of work in Croatia by tapping into the potential of organizations who previously weren't familiar with its work. Furthermore, both CROSOL and many of our partner and member organizations are active in fields relevant for ALF values and objectives, such as human rights, democratization, civic space, rule of law, peacebuilding and non-violence, and equality. CROSOL also has a strong relationship with many artists and artistic groups in Croatia with whom we cooperate in advocating for topics such as human rights, opennes, dialogue and civic participation. Finally, CROSOL has a wide array of media contacts and partners who are able to promote our work towards the public, thus promoting the common values and objectives of the Foundation.
We would like to join the ALF network to further strengthen our capacities and to attain new allies and partners both nationally and internationally. ALF network gathers a large number of organizations who share the same values as CROSOL and many of them work on similar topics such as ourselves. For a relatively young organization such as ours, it is always important to broaden your scope of knowledge, capacities and activities, and being pooled with like-minded organizations within the framework of an international network will help us in this. From our previous experience of joining international networks (CONCORD Europe, EURODAD, European Civic Forum...), this process is likely to strengthen our position as an organization by finding allies, but will also allow ALF to strengthen its activities in Croatia due to our contacts and partnerships. We have learned that civil society is only strong when it is united and numerous, so it is always in our interest to support initiatives which share our values and to have their support in turn.