Public activists began to develop a draft law to improve the grant mechanism

On February 4, the first meeting of the working group to discuss amendments and additions to the Law was held
“On state social order, grants and awards for NGOs in the Republic of Kazakhstan”.
The working group includes civil society experts, heads of NGOs, international organizations and government officials.
The Ministry of Information and Public Development presented the main approaches to improving legislation in terms of increasing the transparency of the grant mechanism, introducing a system of graded grants and evaluating efficiency.
At the first meeting, the issues of the mechanism for the formation of grant projects were discussed.
The drafters of the bill propose to ensure the formation of grants on a bottom-up basis, through the collection of proposals from NGOs, citizens and experts, ranking problems based on the analysis of needs and the results of sociological research.
It was also proposed a public discussion of the directions of grants on the website of the Center for Support of Civil Initiatives (CICI) and discussion at the meetings of the Coordination Council for Cooperation with NGOs under the authorized body, similar regional councils of NGOs and public councils.
During the discussion, the President of the Civil Alliance of Kazakhstan, Banu Nurgazieva, noted the need to simplify the mechanisms of grant funding and give priority to civil initiatives. According to her, the main task of grant projects is the result and high-quality performance of the work.
In turn, Rinad Temirbekov, executive director of the corporate fund Eurasia Foundation of Central Asia, emphasized that it is necessary to change the approach to grants, when the customer determines only the topic and goal, and the mechanisms for solving problems are offered by NGOs. R. Temirbekov also noted that the CPGI should act as a resource center for NGOs, which conducts methodological and analytical work to study the proposals of NGOs and citizens. Gulnar Kurbanbayeva, the head of the Civil Alliance of the Karaganda region, also made specific proposals for planning grant projects.
During the discussion, many suggestions and opinions were received from representatives of the public.
The ministry calls on representatives of civil society to actively discuss the draft law and make proposals.
Proposals are accepted until March 5, 2021 by email granty2021@mail.kz