KYRGYZSTAN TODAY Policy briefs on - Department of Geography

mainly on the social sphere. Other popular areas of focus for NGOs were healthcare,
civic education, gender issues, and the environment.
The abundance of social and economic problems, the support of international
organizations, and the availability of trainable and skilled human resources eventually
led to the establishment of NGOs as a social institution.
Between the 1990s and today Kyrgyzstan’s NGOs, particularly those involved in
environmental and human rights activism, functioned as a mechanism for ensuring that
political relations (e.g. between the state and society, and among major social groups)
remain democratic.
The focus of such institutions is not limited to specific issues: they tend to
identify and formulate a range of social interests and values that are capable of
bringing together large communities. These interests and values are then conveyed
to the government. A democratic society is impossible without these institutions,
since they form the basis of political and social democracy and can be defined as
structural civic organizations.
In the late 1990s, Kyrgyzstan saw an increase in the role of environmental and human
rights organizations. These organizations contributed considerably to the monitoring of
development programs, the enforcement of human rights and freedoms, and also to the
environmental monitoring of various issues.
Through educational, informational, advisory, methodological, and financial
assistance, during this time the leaders of Kyrgyzstan’s non-profits began to increase
their organizational and individual capacities.
Also in late 1990s, many NGOs began to identify their missions, target groups, and
generate goals related to fundraising, organizational development, and organizational
sustainability.
Motivations for Joining NGOs
In characterizing the special nature of non-profits’ social framework, it is important
to identify key motivations for joining these organizations. Drawing on the comments
of non-profit leaders who explained why they decided to do this kind of work, we can
identify a range of motivational stances among active leaders in Kyrgyzstan’s non-profit
sector.
A survey of NGO leaders 1 has shown that people who decide to work in the nongovernmental
sector tend to be motivated by the desire to make the world a better place
or to do good for others, by the wish to be independent, or by the desire to actualize
their leadership or creative potential.
During this period, the NGO sector saw an influx of people with a high level of
educational attainment (over 74 percent are university graduates, and 2 percent have
a postgraduate degree), and who are committed, creative, and have a strong stance on
particular issues.
Since the very beginning of civil society formation in Kyrgyzstan, women have
comprised a considerable part of NGO leaders and activists. Importantly, most of these
women were at least 30 years old. Some experts believe that the reason for this is that,
unlike politics or business that tend to be dominated by men, the non-governmental
sector is an area in which women can seek and find professional fulfillment.
1
The survey of NGO leaders was conducted by the ACSSC for this article; 10 NGO leaders from Bishkek
were interviewed for this survey.
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