The Moldovan Non-Profit Sector in Perspective

Am traveling to Belgrade, Serbia this week on a project that aims to develop a tool for assessing institutional and organizational capacities of non-profit organizations - or the non-governmental organizations - in the Western Balkans region. After first testing this tool among Serbian non-profits, the Serbian counterpart, ProConcept selected Moldova to test, and adjust this tool called INGOC . My first impression is that the Serbian non-profit sector is quite developed, having a strong influence on policy making and being an important counterpart in social service provision, despite significant distrust and negative image among the government institutions and people - an unfortunate consequence of the recent political history.

Belgrade is a nice and very green city. The landscape highlight is the meeting of two rivers - the Danube and Sava, which is best admired from the medieval fortress of Beograde. Here are my favorite pictures.

Is the Non-governmental Sector a Reflection of the Government?

During my training, I do not hear much about non-governmental or third sector in Japan. When I ask about the participatory aspect of the decision-making process in the public sector, it seems like, besides governmental agencies, and government-affiliated institutions, the only other stakeholders are university professors and business (association) leaders. My understanding is that the government itself requests input from the academia and the business community (on economic development policies), and then makes the best-informed decisions which are subsequently followed by citizens and businesses. Excluding universities, it looks like the non-governmental sector is either weak or inexistent in Japan. Yet, the Japanese society is highly organized, democratic and developed.

In Moldova, development of the non-governmental sector has been highly encouraged, particularly by the donor community. Everyone has created or wants to establish a non-governmental organization. The focus is frequently on the non-governmental part rather than on organization part. As long as you are not with the government, you can be a hero! I think this attitude is responsible for today’s situation in which we have a weak government, weak opposition, and a weak civil society. None is good (visionary, professional, honest, creative) enough to do a proper job in any sector.

Moldova might want to look at Japan’s model: the government is in the center of decision-making, but for high-quality and informed decisions, it relies on the academic (scientific) and private sectors. Even in the case of the highly decentralized American society, all three sectors (public, non-profit and private) are moving (undoubtedly, with much more debate) in the same direction.