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Roundtable: Russian Grassroots NGO Leaders Highlight Progress and Challenges

November 2003

Four Russian leaders from grassroots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), along with guest speaker Dr. Sarah Mendelson, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, conducted a public roundtable at IREX offices in Washington, DC, to outline the cumulative progress of, and continued challenges facing, the nonprofit sector in Russia. The four NGOs serve as regional networks supporting surrounding nonprofits by maintaining databases, providing training, raising funds, and other activities. Their views were shared on October 28 as the USAID-funded, IREX-administered Promoting and Strengthening Russian NGO Development (Pro-NGO) program, which supports NGO development in regions across the Russian Federation, draws to a close.

Noting the recent arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the wealthy and politically active president of the oil company Yukos, Mendelson expressed concern about the shrinking space for civil society in Russia. She cast ongoing harassment of journalists and human rights and labor activists in terms of a battle of networks: the network of liberal internationalists seeks to integrate Russia into the Euro-Atlantic community and its international institutions and organizations, while illiberal nationalists, who often garner support by calling for strengthened state power following the rapid change and flux of the Yeltsin years, seek to minimize foreign influences and porous borders. To succeed today, said Mendelson, civil society leaders need communications skills to bring practical action to the strongly principled orientation of Soviet-era dissent. Moreover, there is cause for optimism: survey data show substantial public support for human rights NGOs, and Mendelson’s work in assisting NGOs to use survey data to focus on local community needs has met enthusiasm among local NGO leaders.

The visiting guests from Russia, representing NGOs that host regional networks for local NGOs under the Pro-NGO program, likewise cited both considerable achievements and lingering obstacles. Valentina Pestrikova of the Samara-based Povolje Association noted that Samara Oblast, which is often called a miniature Russia because of its ethnic diversity and which contains abundant oil and one of the highest per capita incomes in Russia, is home to over 4,000 NGOs. Of those, few are supported from state budgets, but 56% have permanent staff and provide up to 5,000 jobs.

Tatyana Lyskina of Krasnodar’s Southern Regional Resource Center stressed her region’s high population density and large, traditionally conservative Cossack community. Over 12,000 NGOs operate in the region, with the largest number being human rights organizations. The most active NGOs, however, provide social services, and many require transparency in their proceedings and social investment from the local community.

Describing her organization, the Siberian Civic Initiative Support Center in Novosibirsk, founded in 1994, Elena Malitskaya observed that it covers a territory larger than the United States and has established a framework of common approaches for NGOs from across that vast reach. Among the population, 53% consider that they cannot solve their own problems, but a like percentage believes that it is important to do so; NGOs face a challenge in prompting the population to become more involved. The Center is the first organization in Siberia to propose cooperation across the business, government, and NGO sectors and has 3,500 NGOs listed in its database. Despite a marked increase in philanthropic contributions, however, funds contributed by the business sector remain insubstantial. Sarah Lindeman-Komarova, an American resident of Novosibirsk and cofounder of the Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center, stressed the need to ensure that NGO resources are distributed to local NGOs in response to local needs rather than being solely disbursed centrally from Moscow-based national organizations.

In response to an audience question, the panelists confirmed the preeminence of women among the NGO sector in Russia, expressing regret at the lesser involvement of men in fields such as children’s development, where their presence would be particularly beneficial.

The panelists returned to their NGO networks in Russia in early November to build upon the achievements made possible through the Pro-NGO program.

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