About us

The association CIVIS was founded on the 4th of June 2007 by the representatives of the non-governmental organizations from Serbia and the Southeast Europe. Bearing in mind that there is no common association that would represent the interests and positions of the NGOs from the Southeast Europe in the Council of Europe’s Conference of international NGOs, we decided to incite the creation of an umbrella association named CIVIS (citizen in Latin). Various organizations joined this initiative, among them: European Movement in Serbia, Civic Initiatives, Standing Conference of Towns and Municipalities, Association of Multiethnic Cities of Southeast Europe - PHILIA, Center for Regionalism, Peace and Crisis Management Foundation etc.

Membership in CIVIS is opened for the NGOs, foundations and citizens of the Southeast Europe who share the same mission – promotion and improvement of the rights of all citizens of the above mentioned region together with the fulfillment of the highest standards of the civil society, support of the civic dialogue in the region as well as between the region of Southeast Europe and the member states of the European Union.

CIVIS promotes ideas and values of the European Union and the Council of Europe, stimulates the cooperation of the NGOs in order to accelerate the process of European integration of the countries that are not yet member states of the EU, as well as the cross border and regional cooperation of the NGOs, municipalities, entrepreneurs and citizens.

According to the opinion of the commission in charge, CIVIS has, in a very short time, fulfilled all the conditions to acquire the participatory status in the Council of Europe’s Conference of the international NGOs. From January 2008 CIVIS takes full part in the activities of the Council of Europe’s Conference of international NGOs, which takes place four times per year. Since CIVIS is an umbrella association and gathers the NGOs that often have different areas of action, the participation of CIVIS in the of the international NGOs takes place in all working bodies:

• Committee for the culture, science and education
• Committee for the civil society and democracy
• Committee for human rights
• Committee for the sustainable territorial development
• Committee for social cohesion and eradication of poverty
• Transversal group for the gender equality
• Transversal group for Europe and global challenges.

In order to gather its members around common goals, CIVIS initiates projects with the aim to realize them in one or more countries of the Southeast Europe. So far, the activities of the association were aimed at the inter-religious dialogue, energy efficiency as one of the most important questions of sustainable development, protection of the cultural heritage in the Southeast Europe, consistent regional development etc.

CIVIS has the opportunity to network with 410 associations, members of the Conference of the international NGOs from the whole Europe. That is why the main activity of CIVIS will be to make and deepen the cooperation of its members with the associations and other subjects from Western and Central Europe, exchange of good experiences and methods and networking which will help to resolve global problems.