KYRGYZSTAN TODAY Policy briefs on - Department of Geography

the participants of public hearings, these councils are extremely helpful in coordinating
activities in a variety of sectors; yet in some places, they gradually started to turn into
an instrument of government officials to control NGOs who even exercised dictatorship
over them. Over time, this mechanism of cooperation began to deteriorate.
While addressing social problems, it is important to use innovative, participatory
approaches. For example, the Alga NGO routinely signs “memoranda of partnership”
with government officials, bearing in mind the maxim “People come and go; agreements
remain.” The city of Karakol has an efficient Public Municipal Council, whose members
include members of the city’s Kenesh (Council) and civil society organizations.
All stakeholders in the process benefit from this form of cooperation and this, in
turn, ensures all-round social development.
Public Hearings on Social Partnership Issues
To evaluate the status of social partnership between government bodies and NGOs,
the results of several discussions were used. These discussions occurred during a variety
of events, including:
– social partnership roundtables and focus groups with government officials
and various civil society members, held in October 2007 in seven provinces of
Kyrgyzstan (participants included governmental bodies, NGOs, businesses,
trade unions, and the media);
– the National Conference on Social Partnership (February 2008);
– groundwork carried out by an interdepartmental working group to review
Kyrgyzstan’s legislation pertaining to social partnership and to produce
recommendations on ways to optimize current laws (January-June 2008);
– awareness campaigns (e.g. quarterly newsletters, informational booklets, and
a report on the National Conference on Social Partnership that took place in
2008);
– a survey of 52 experts who represented government bodies and NGOs on the
national and local levels.
Active participation by government officials and NGO members in public hearings
clearly helped make cooperation between partners more efficient, particularly with
regard to the most pressing socio-economic issues. Some of the best examples of effective
problem-solving include:
• the campaign to promote the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic on the Commissioning
of Social Services [1];
• ARIS projects, carried out within the framework of the Public Investment
Program;
• the development of a State Program for Ensuring Gender Equality and the
approval of a National Plan of Action to Achieve Gender Equality in the Kyrgyz
Republic for 2007-2010;
• partnership projects to eradicate the worst forms of child labor, with the
involvement of government bodies and civil society organizations (the 2008
State Program);
• the establishment of a Public Municipal Council in Karakol, bringing together
members of the City Council and local civil society organizations.
Following public hearings conducted throughout the country in the autumn of 2007,
on 14 February 2008 a National Conference on Social Partnership was held in Bishkek. The
conference was organized by the Kyrgyz President’s Administration and Counterpart-
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