The European Union and Central Asia: Searching for Synergies between Civil Societies
Aigerim Duimagambetova
On 27 June in Almaty, Kazakhstan, the EU-Central Asia Monitoring (EUCAM) project organised a roundtable under the title ‘The European Union and Central Asia: Searching for Synergy and Promoting Cooperation of Civil Societies’. There were participants from almost all Central Asian states, especially Kazakhstan, from the leading NGOs in the areas of security, human rights promotion and advocacy in the region, and a number of EU experts also took part.
Representatives of the leading Central Asian non-profit organisations were invited to share their views on the role and perspectives of the EU in upholding the efforts of local non-state agencies to develop fully functioning independent mass media, promote human rights and freedoms and monitor the transparency and accountability of governments.
Conclusions were drawn during the debates on a range of very substantive issues, including the legal and institutional framework for civil society in the EU, OSCE and Council of Europe; increased use of the official human rights channels for discussions on the violations of essential civil freedoms such as freedom of speech; closer cooperation with other major donors in the region; new approaches on technical and financial assistance in this field, and a substantial rethink of its content. According to the representatives of the Central Asian civil community, these are all issues on which the EU could improve its standing in supporting the civil societies of Central Asia.
Participants raised a wide range of issues related to the functioning of the civil sector in Central Asia. It was a commonly held view that the EU’s engagement in this sphere is less than it could be: much more could be done to bring about demonstrable change. Among the main problems, participants criticised the over-bureaucratised procedures for acquiring grants, the lack of long-term and coherent strategies, and the lack of approaches tailored to the situation of each of the Central Asia states.
NGO activists called upon the EU to support their efforts on the ground with more vigorous and robust positions at the political level, by raising sensitive issues in talks with Central Asian authorities, and by reacting promptly to new human rights violations in the region. The approaching chairmanship of Kazakhstan at the OSCE, as well as its growing interest in the involvement with the Council of Europe, are seen in the region as potential mechanisms for Europe to influence the situation in Kazakhstan. This will, in turn, positively impact the status quo in other states of the region.
It was stressed that the EU should focus more on promoting and supporting cooperation and networking between organisations within Central Asia, and collaborate more with other international actors present in the region. Most of the speakers believed that emphasis should be placed on the technical education and training of NGOs and their target groups, and on the qualitative assessments of the impact of such activities.
