Our new Project: Monitoring Freedom of Association

Since the beginning of the 2000s, we observe that some fundamental topics remain unchanged in the agenda of civil society in Turkey. By the way this is also reflected in the EU's support to civil society.

The first inevitable topic is the capacity of civil society organisations. Trying to develop this capacity, discussing how and by “whom” the capacity will be developed, designing new projects, organizing endless pieces of training and meetings - even if the subject and methods change-, preparing reports, implementing grant programs can all be listed at once.

The second topic is “legislation”. Even though we sometimes ignore it, the general framework of our efforts in the civil society field is determined by the "decree-laws on making changes in the decree-laws regarding the amendment of some decree laws". While trying to create a change, let me say while working for a better world, we must control if the decisions of the board of directors of our institution comply with the legislation or not, and furthermore, we should learn the tax rules for paying the rent of our CSO. The joy of awarding an EU project fades away, while we are applying for VAT exemption and losing ourselves between the lines of the General Communiqué on the Turkey-European Union Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA II) Framework Agreement (Sequence No: 1) published in the Official Gazette dated 13/02/2016 and numbered 29623.

Our final topic is public-civil society cooperation. Our daily work sometimes evolves to influencing public policy, advocacy, strengthening participatory democracy, local participation, and finally intersects with public institutions, which we speak with totally different terminology.

Usually, we discuss at a conceptual level “what is meaningful participation in decision-making processes”, “which tools could be used”, “whether these tools are effective or not”, “what are the international standards”, and “what is participatory democracy”. But, at the end of the day, we face the “realities of life”, such as how to get an appointment from a public institution, or how to respond to a three-page official letter that came out of a yellow envelope with the SECRET stamp on it. And these realities determine the limits of public-civil society cooperation.

It is possible to add two horizontal topics to the fundamental ones. The first one is following the global civil society agenda closely.  Involving in the policy processes of international organizations and the EU and taking part in the international networks are the critical aspects of this topic. The second horizontal one is to produce information and data…

These macro-scale or policy-level topics have been on the agenda of some civil society organisations in Turkey for the last 20 years. The Civil Society Development Center Association (STGM) and Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TÜSEV) are the leading ones among these CSOs. The efforts of STGM and TÜSEV to monitor freedom of association, strengthen public-civil society cooperation, and improve the legislation regarding civil society converged and become prominent in this period. And now, STGM and TÜSEV are starting to implement a new EU project called Monitoring Freedom of Association.

We defined the objective of the project as to ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory, and representative decision-making at all levels. We aim to contribute to raising awareness on barriers to the expansion of the civil space and build capacities for rights-based advocacy in Turkey.

We have 3 focus areas:

1. Monitoring the enabling environment in Turkey
2. Creating Demand for Accessible Public Administration
3. Better Advocacy and Engagement Capacity of CSOs

As one can see we will continue to work on fundamental topics that have been on the agenda of Turkish civil society for the last 20 years, with a new perspective and a more systematic and complementary approach.

Within the scope of the Monitoring Freedom of Association Project, we will first try to produce more information on the field to contribute to the development of civil society in Turkey. In this context, we need to produce reports that will facilitate data-based decision-making by CSOs and public institutions. Another priority area is to strengthen the culture of public institutions to work with civil society by working in close cooperation with them. Also, we will try to develop concrete proposals in line with the international standards, especially to improve the regulations related to civil society. “Supporting the capacity of grassroots in terms of participation is also crucial for us. Again, by following the agenda of civil society in the world and in Turkey, we aim to facilitate the access of grassroots to information.

As a result, the unique experience of STGM and TUSEV in Turkey is reflected in the project design. We hope that it will be a modest contribution to Turkish civil society on critical issues, such as freedom of association, the right to participate, public-civil society cooperation, strengthening the capacity of CSOs, and closely following the global civil society agenda.  The focus of the project is to produce more information and develop concrete proposals.

We will continue to share the details and outputs of the project with you for the next three years. However, everyone could do what is written in the project document :)  We will try to go beyond the project paper with your participation and contribution.