What does civil society mean?
Even though it seems to be a very sophisticated concept, the civil society represents the “third sector” of society, next to the other two sectors - the state and the business.  

The state ensures governance, the business – economic development and the civil society addresses those issues, which remain uncovered by the state or business. Usually civil society is represented by public associations (NGOs), in other words - by ordinary people who get togheter led by their wish to do something for a particular group of beneficiaries – these could be either people with specific needs, or ones who require special assistance.
  
Compared to government, the area of activity of NGOs is much narrower.  On the one hand, the state takes care of large proportions of people, the entire population, trying to strike a balance for all social strata, on the other hand - the NGOs represent the interests of smaller groups of people and deliver specific services. They can, however, lobby for nation-wide causes as well – for example protection of the natural environment. The main actors of civil society are interest groups - fan clubs, associations of people with disabilities, parent’s committees, etc.  

Compared to business, NGOs do not pursue to obtain a profit that is why they are usually called “non-profit organizations”. The main purpose of their activity is to enhance the lives of less numerous segments of population, which are not covered by governmental programs.
 
Why is civil society important?

Without public associations many people wouldn’t ever have a chance to be heard. NGOs are the so-called “transmission belt” of society - they provide the government with the feedback of the  citizens. Lobby organizations assure that the interests of all citizens are being respected and protected.  

Without public associations many people wouldn’t have the possibility to have decent living standards, especially those, who don’t have money to purchase the services they need. NGOs are supporting the ones who have no access to particular services or values. Hot meals for elderly and homeless, centers for vulnerable children and families, rehabilitation centers – all these demonstrate care, which civil society offers to the ones in need.
 
Without NGOs society would lack color and diversity. Activities for kids, youth and adolescents, initiatives of planting trees in the communities, fan clubs, etc – all these represent the willingness of ordinary people to live a full life and share values with the ones close to them.

What does our project offer?
Our project is especially oriented towards non-governmental organizations active in the social sphere - those which try to offer a better quality of life for the most disadvantaged groups, such as elderly, people with disabilities, children from vulnerable families, etc. Poverty reduction is one of the burning problems in the RM, that is why it is essentially important for people to learn how to associate, how to search and find solutions for solving the problems, how to protect the rights, obtain what they need and improve their life.  

Our project offers training, consulting and technical assistance support.
In general, we assist NGOs which provide services in the social sphere, particularly outside of Chisinau and big cities. Furtehrmore, we work with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection to strengthen its capacity to build partnerships and improve dialogue with civil society actors.

For more details, please refer to project’s summary:

What results is the project planning to accomplish?

In order to achieve the envisaged goals, the project “Strengthening Civil Society” is implementing a series of different activities, which are planned according to results, described in the logical framework of the project.

I: Fist of all, the project team conducted an evaluation of the current situation of the non-governmental sector in Moldova. What is the capacity of non-governmental sector, what kind of services are provided, which are the categories of beneficiaries, what are the sources of funding of NGOs – these are just some questions, which had to find their answer, so that an efficient strategy for training and consulting is elaborated.  The results of the Social NGOs survey can be found here

II: After the evaluation of the capacity and necessities of the sector, the project has started to  provide services of training and consulting to the best possible extent. The main purpose of the project is to increase the number of organizations, which will benefit from these services, because this will improve the coverage and create a sustainable impact.  One of the options that the project chose has been the training of trainers. Four Resource Centers from four regions of Moldova - Edineţ, Comrat, Hânceşti şi Ungheni have benefited from a special training and will  work as trainers for the entire lifetime of the project.

III: Another way to increase the impact of the project and ensure national coverage is the cooperation with the networks of NGOs. These networks are very important for different actors of the civil society from the communication point of view - they facilitate the information exchange, including best practices, initiation of communication campaigns and advocacy.  

IV: The project has trained a pool of 20 trainers from four resource center, and as mentioned above they will organize training and consulting for at least one hundred NGOs, active in the social sphere.
                                                                    
V: Dialogue and cooperation between the representatives of civil society and public authorities is  a precondition for the NGOs more active involvement in the life of communities, for the development of better structured, better oriented and more efficient social services. The project is therefore also supporting the cooperation and the dialogue of NGOs with the Ministry of Health and Social Protection of RM so that they work better together to reach their common goals.

VI: Additionally, the project is providing individual technical assistance to the
NGOs beneficiaries of the micro project grant scheme of the EC Delegation, which implement projects in the social sphere.
These beneficiaries are:

• NGO “Children, communities, families”
• NGO “Compasiune”
• NGO “Second Breath”
• NGO “Keystone Human Services International Moldova Association”
• NGO “Partenaire”
• NGO “National League of Preuniversity Debates”.

VII: It is very important for the ordinary people to learn more about NGOs, their role in  society, why their activity is valuable and how can people support their work. The best practices and successes of the NGOs are disseminated by our project through different channels – publications, TV shows, press conferences, etc.

Project Partners and Beneficiaries.
Ministry of Health and Social Protection
Social NGOs Networks
Resource Centers
NGO providers of social services