Financing of NGOs reached 20bln tenge in 15 years - Civil Alliance Leader

ASTANA. KAZINFORM President of the Civil Alliance of Kazakhstan Assylbek Kozhakhmetov summarized the activity of the country's non-governmental organizations in the past years, Kazinform correspondent reports.

"Today's Forum is a result of the work conducted in previous years. We have organized 17 regional forums and conferences. For the first time, the civil sector representatives initiated to adopt a Concept of Development till year 2025. Kazakhstan's non-governmental sector has overcome a big stage of quantitative and qualitative growth. Since 2003, when the first Civil Forum took place, financing of NGOs' projects has increased from 11 to 20 billion tenge," said Assylbek Kozhakhmetov at the 8th Civil Forum in Astana.

Since 2015, the non-governmental organizations have been provided with grants and prizes. A data bank of NGOs was created, public councils and the institute of commissioners for interaction with civil sector were established, he said.

The head of the Civil Alliance expressed concern over unequal distribution of financing in regional breakdown. In his words, Karaganda, Almaty and Turkestan regions lead in winning public contracts, while there can be a 30-fold gap between the leaders and outsiders. "The main issue is that we should reduce regional imbalance and contribute more to rural areas," he stressed.

In his words, the Ministry of Agriculture must intensify its work with the rural NGOs.