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38 | Eectsummer 2008 European Foundation Centre | www.efc.be

A country recovering from a devastatingcivil war; a state split into two mutuallysuspicious parts; a nation racked bycontinuing divisions between its threemain communities, a cold war inparliament owing to these divisions, andlack of faith in democracy and politicians.This is Bosnia-Hercegovina today and thisis the environment the Mozaik Foundationis working in and trying to change.

Founded in 2002, Mozaik is a community development found-

ation that works across this divided country, transcending eth-nic barriers. Its strategy is to mobilise local resources and get

people involved in democracy at local level to address issues

that aect their daily lives. Focusing on villages and small towns,

Mozaik brings people together to formulate priorities for their

community. Given the post-war nature of Bosnia, most of their

priorities concern infrastructure repair and development. The

foundation then co-funds projects based on these priorities,

mobilising additional resources from individuals, governments,

and businesses.

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ZoranPulji,ExecutiveDirector,MozaikFound

ation.PhotoMozaikFoundation

38 | Eectsummer 2008

Building democracy in Bosnia

from the ground upBy Nyegosh Dube, EFC

new perspective resulted from the contribution by theEuropean Stability Initiative (ESI), which ERSTE Foun-

dation has supported for many years. We commissioned

economic and social development studies in CEE, on

which scripts for the ten documentaries were based.

Effect: What do you hope to achieve in the region in

the next 5-10 years?

BM: For ourselves, we want to build up expertise as

one of the most active foundations in the region. In

ten years, our budget for pay-outs will probably be ten

times higher than today. And we want to make the re-

gion a better place to live in.

For further information see:

www.erstestiftung.org

"ERSTE Foundation will soon beone of Europes biggest, in termsof wealth and pay-outs. Our staffdoubled last year and will triple in

the next three years."

Photo

ERSTEFoun

dation

European Foundation Centre | www.efc.be

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This is a great platform that enables participation of all

sides which are pretty much still divided, because the accent

is not on reconciliation or peace-building but on concrete

things that matter to them very much, says Zoran Pulji,

Executive Director of Mozaik. Democracy starts at the com-

munity level and people at the community level need to see

that participating in the democratic process actually leads to

positive change. So Mozaik educates people in democratic

participation, so they can see their voice matters. The focus

is on tangible outcomes.

While Mozaik is the only real indigenous foundation in Bos-

nia, it is primarily a re-granting organisation with most of its

funds coming from abroad, from public donors and privatefoundations. Recently it has received major funding from lo-

cal governments in Bosnia: an encouraging sign. Mozaik has

also been encouraging business to contribute to its activities.

It is also launching two businesses of its own, separate legal

entities whose prots will be channelled into the foundation.

The goal, of course, is to become less dependent on foreign

donors. Pulji believes that in the next 4-5 years, at least half

Mozaik's funding will be domestically generated, which for

Bosnia would be a unique achievement.

Unsurprisingly, philanthropy is scarcely developed in Bosnia,

given that business itself is just starting to develop. Things

look positive, but everything is still at the beginning stage,

so it is very dicult for foundations to have any asset accu-

mulation, says Pulji. On top of that, individual donations

are low because of the large continuing presence of interna-

tional charities. People feel there's no need to donate their

own money. But there is good news: Austria's Raieisen Bank

has just opened its own foundation in Bosnia and other cor-

porate foundations are being set up. Mozaik itself is encour-

aging corporate philanthropy: last year it launched an annual

CSR contest. As Pulji puts it, the idea is to talk to businesses

in their own language, which is being competitive.While things are still tough in Bosnia because of a war where

everybody lost and the resulting divisions which create dif-

culties for business and NGOs, Pulji is optimistic: All in all,

things have moved forward tremendously in the last couple

of years[the country is] much more integrated.

For further information see: www.mozaik.ba/eng/index.php

39 | Eectsummer 2008

Democracy without citizensFirst of all, central and eastern Europe is by no means a homo-

geneous area. The concept was resurrected from the geopo-

litical past to define the post-communist countries with a clear

democratisation agenda and a strong pro-European drive (un-

like Russia, for instance). Most are already members of the Eu-

ropean Union or on the way to joining (Croatia). Their descent

from the top of the political agenda and public attention was

only to be expected. The societies of the new Member Stateswere ushered into the mainstream of established functional

democracies that possess developed patterns and mechanisms

of representation, participation and checks and balances. The

trouble with the new democracies, it turned out, is that the

framework is more or less in place but representation, partici-

pation and checks and balances leave much to be desired.

One of the visionary but nave assumptions at the start of the

Revitalising civil society in a disappearing region

By Rayna Gavrilova, Executive Director, Trust for Civil Society in Centraland Eastern Europe

Rayna Gavrilova, Executive Director,

TrustforCivilsociety inCentraland

EasternEurope.Photo TrustforCivil

SocietyinCentral andEasternEurope

I must give credit for this articles title to theorganisers of a conference on cultural identity, held inSwitzerland in 2004 and, of course, to the well-knownarticle by Timothy Garton Ash, Where is centralEurope Now?. The question recurred with renewedurgency during conversations in the margins of EFCsAGA and Conference in Istanbul this year. The questionis emphatically not geographical, so it is important toanswer it from the perspective of a grant-maker with amission to support civil society in the region.

Where is central

and eastern Europe?


Documents

Effect V2 2 Summer2008Dube Bosnia2