International Laboratory for Nonprofit Sector Studies HSE held Conference "Evolving East-West Patterns of Government-Nonprofit Cooperation in the Provision of Social Services" December 2-5 in Moscow
The conference was a first major event presenting the research of the International Laboratory for Nonprofit Sector Studies, the Center for Studies of Civil Society and the Nonprofit Sector, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
The discussion focused on two crucial topical dimensions of the research:
· on exploring the evolution of government-nonprofit cooperation in the Russian Federation in the light of similar developments in Western Europe, Central Europe, and China;
· on the forms of interaction that are emerging between government and nonprofit organizations at the regional level in Russia.
The papers presented at the conference which were devoted to the first topic featured detailed data from the Netherlands, France, Italy, Poland, China and Kyrgyzstan demonstrating a global shift characterized by increased collaboration among units of government, civil society organizations, and progressive businesses in addressing social, economic, and environmental problems that in a globalizing world, have grown too complex for any one sector to handle on its own. While the government is receding from the direct delivery of services to address public needs, the role of CSOs as partners in this process is becoming critically important. The investigation of Russian government policy vis-à-vis the nonprofit sector, and in particular vis-à-vis socially oriented nonprofit organizations, shows that Russia is aware of the global trend and seeks to adapt international patterns to its own economic, social and legal conditions.
The presentation made by L. Jakobson, Director of the Laboratory focused on the specific features of the Russian civil society and highlighting its current trends of development. The “rooted” model, which has by now displaced the import dependent evolution of civil society (dominating in the 1990-s) provides good preconditions for an increasing role of the nonprofit organizations in the social services in Russia. Within the framework of the “rooted” model there is an ample space for cooperation between government and nonprofit organizations in search of solutions to social problems.
The papers devoted to the regional perspective were focused on two broad issues. First, the diversity of social and economic conditions in the subjects of the Russian Federation was discussed. For a more detailed future analysis eight Russian regions were identified as suitable sites to identify modes of cooperation between governmental institutions and third sector organizations in addressing social policy issues in Russia’s regions. Second, instruments for the regional research components were elaborated. The instruments are structured in form of a Field Guide. The Field Guide is intended to organize filed work in a way that will generate the needed information and to do so in a way that ensures that comparable issues are addressed in each field site so that useful comparisons can ultimately be made. To do so, the Field Guide provides a general introduction to the topics to be addressed and the overall format of the desired deliverables, and then provides detailed descriptions of the issues to be addressed and preliminary suggestions about where the needed information may be found. The Field Guide is intended to serve as a kind of questionnaire to a team of Local Associates and ILab researchers but is not intended as a survey instrument to be administered to local respondents. Local Associates and ILab researchers are advised to access whatever combination of available data, documents, interviews and other resources they consider appropriate and available to answer the questions posed, but are advised to keep careful record of these sources and to cite them in their answers.
The concluding session of the conference was open to the participants of the annual forum on best practices of cross-sectoral cooperation between government and NGOs sponsored by the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia and the Civic Chamber. This audience represents Russian NGO leaders and staff members of regional and federal government agencies involved in innovative cooperative projects in the social sector. The presentations and the round-table discussion generated a significant stream of questions and comments from the audience. This intellectual interaction between staff members of the International Laboratory and the audience had a significant value for the policy analysis component of the on-going laboratory research.
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