Non Governmental Sector

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Romania 2010.

Non-governmental Sector- Prole, Tendencies, Challenges -

Summary

Bucharest


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Civil Society Development Foundation

Registered ofce: 2k Splaiul Independenei, entrance 1, 4th oor, 3rd District, Bucharest, Romania

Correspondence address: Strada Orzari nr. 86A, Sector 2, Bucureti, Romnia

P.O. Box 22-219, Bucureti, Romnia

Tel: +40-21-310 01 81 Fax: +40-21-310 01 80

E-mail: [email protected]

web site: www.dsc.ro; www.stiriong.ro

This material was perormed within the project Romanian NGO Directory implemented by Civil Society Development Foundation

and unded by Trust or Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe

All rights on this paper are reserved by Civil Society Development Foundation (FDSC). Any integral or partial reproduction,

irrespective o the used technical means, without written consent rom FDSC, is prohibited. Parts o this publication can bereproduced or non-commercial purposes, only i speciying the source.


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The report Romania 2010. Non-governmental Sector - Prole, Tendencies, Challenges aims

to give an overall evaluation o the non-governmental sector development, oering in the

same time an in-depth image o the sector, as it is at present and rom various perspectives.It oers structured inormation related to the dimension o the sector, its dynamics, various

sub-sector evolutions and activity elds related analyses, oering at the same time a series o

recommendations or actions which may oster the development o the non-governmental

sector. The report was produced in the period October 2008 September 2010, within the

project Romanian NGO Directory, implemented by Civil Society Development Foundation and

unded by Trust or Civil Society in Central & Eastern Europe.

This study is the most complex study o this kind perormed during the latest 10 years in

Romania. It has become even more necessary as, during the adhesion process to the

European Union, the non-governmental sector, as part o the Romanian society, sueredimportant transormations and is still undergoing substantial changes. It is important,

both or the practitioners and or the public, to understand the origins, dimension and

perspectives o these changes. At the same time, as part o a European democratic system that

Romania is trying to internalize, the non-governmental sector is a very important actor who

needs to be better known and dened in order to carry on strengthening and developing. Not

least, the report ocuses on the important economic and social role o the non-governmental

sector, especially in the context o economic crisis and o the current institutional reorms.

The report targets an audience o proessionals in the NGO eld, political decision makers, the

business sector, journalists and, generally, to all the persons interested in this sphere, genericallylabelled civil society.

The collection and analysis o comprehensive inormation on the non-governmental sector

present substantial challenges. The methodology o this study attempted to respond to

these challenges by using a diversied range o instruments. The research methods have

included: quantitative data analysis (balance sheet data o the non-governmental

organizations or the scal years 2006, 2007, 2008 according to the Ministry o Public Finances,

the database o the National Institute o Statistics with the addresses o the non-governmental

organizations which submitted tax returns in 2007, the Civil Society Directory database

with active non-governmental organizations in Romania, available online within the

portal www.stiriong.ro); Omnibus research (conducted on a nal ocus group o 1196 persons,

typical or the adult population o Romania); national online survey amongst the representatives

o NGOs in Romania (Barometer o NGO Leaders); 6 thematic ocus-groups; 22 interviews; public

inormation requests on the grounds o Law 544/2001; analysis o more than 90 reports, studies,

researches and reerence works or the non-governmental sector.

The report tries to dene the non-governmental sector rom a wide range o perspectives:

starting rom the legal status o various non-governmental entities, their unctions, structure and

organizational types, geographic areas and elds o intervention, type and volume o humanand nancial resources they use, type o services and public goods they produce, to the public

image o the non-governmental sector and the relation with the other actors o the public space

(public authorities, business sector, other actors in the civil society) and rst o all, the citizen.

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The non-governmental organizations remain rather less visible and known in the

domestic public landscape.

Despite an impressive dynamics o the non-governmental sector in Romania there are

registered nowadays in Romania more than 62,000 organizations, with more than 21,000 active

organizations the non-governmental organizations remain a quite little visible and know actorin the domestic public landscape. Nonetheless or twenty years in Romania, non-governmental

organizations have re-entered the public arena under various orms. Many o the Romanian

citizens attend proessional training courses organized by non-governmental organizations;

they go to universities which operate as non-governmental organizations, use social services

provided or managed by such organizations, spend their spare time in cultural or sports events

organized by prole associations.

The conusion on what actually denes the term NGOs is also increased by the act that they

are grouped under various names, such as the non-governmental, non-prot sector or civil

society, or more recently, social entrepreneurship and social economy. Due to the variety oobjectives and instruments they use in order to perorm their mission, the non-governmental

organizations orm a sometimes disordering assembly o entities organizations with very

diverse preoccupations human rights, proessional organizations, day care centres, groups or

the environment protection, sports clubs, proessional training centres, universities, and many

others. The legislative ramework which regulates the non-governmental organizations (in this

case, associations, oundations and ederations) experienced an evolution which, on the one

hand, contributed to dening the non-governmental sector and to institutionalize it (without

settling however important issues as regulating the statute o public utility or the legal and

scal treatment o donations, sponsorships and contributions or the non-governmental sector),

yet, on the other hand, it maintains another series o excessive procedures (especially related

to their registration). The obligations instituted by law together with the obligation to ollow

a rather complex judicial procedure bring an excess o solemnity and control o legality or an

action which, by its civic character which is available to any citizen, should be simple to ull by

any interested person.

Partly because o the legal procedures needed or the registration, but especially due to the

concentration o the human and nancial capital in the urban environment, in Romania,

non-governmental organizations remain a mainly urban phenomena (87% o NGOs are

registered and operate in the urban environment), even though the urban-rural developmentgap remains one o the major issues o the countries. There can be noticed a major presence

o national organizations constituted in large cities and in Bucharest, with a national mission,

compared to organizations exclusively ocused on working on issues o the communities they

belong to.

The economic and social dimension o the non-governmental sector in Romania is

impressive, despite dicult access to resources.

The non-governmental organizations are active in wide range o elds (environment, social,

human rights etc.). From a statistic point o view, according to the number o registered legalpersons, the most important elds are sport and recreational activities (18.8%), education (7.5%)

and social services (7.3%). From the perspective o the employed sta and o annual incomes,

the most important eld is education, ollowed by sport and recreational activities and those

related to the social eld. The most dynamic sectors are: education with a growth o 38%, sport

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and recreational activities with 26%. Within the context o continuous reorm o the educational

system and o budgetary resources which constantly represented an issue, the contribution o

non-governmental organizations as suppliers o educational services is considerable.

At the level of the year 2009, the Romanian non-governmental organizations are

registered as initiators and main nancers o more than 750 private pre-academicteaching units.

The weight estimated from the total courses of initiation, qualication, improvement or

proessional specialization supplied by accredited non-governmental organizations is o

25% o the total accredited training programs during the period 2005 2009.

The non-governmental organizations represent 49% of the accredited suppliers of

social services and almost 50% o the accredited services in Romania.

The capacity of private suppliers to oer social services is marked out by the diversity

and number o accredited services, the non-prot private suppliers (associations and

oundations) accrediting 7776 dierent services, approx. 50% o the total accredited

services in Romania. NGO supplies 25% of alternative services for child protection in Romania, but the

weight o NGOs within the providers o such services decreases.

The NGOs serve 41% of the beneciaries of homecare services and more than 58% of

the old persons each month, using their own unding sources,. A monthly average

number o 10,192 old persons receive attendance at their domicile rom

non-governmental organizations.

According to the data of the Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Protection, the

balance cost-eciency and the preerences o the beneciaries are avourable to NGOs.

Besides the important volume o work carried out as volunteering whose value is dicult to

assess in monetary terms, the non-governmental sector in Romania is an important employer,

which provides a large number o jobs.

In the year 2008, the total number of jobs in the non-governmental sector was of 89,450

or a total number o 21,319 organizations, decreasing compared to 2006 and 2007.

For the year 2007, the number of jobs in the non-governmental sector was higher than

the number o jobs in other sectors such as nancial intermediations (97,000 employees)

or the mining industry (84,000 employees).

The number of jobs in the non-governmental sector in Romania is small compared tothe occupation capacity o the sector in other European countries.

NGOs largely operate based on volunteering, 68% of the active organizations

exclusively operating with volunteer work orce.

Along with the integration in the European Union, Romania maniested more and more interest

or the development o the social economy eld. A signicant part o the European economy is

not organized only or making prot or the investors. Social economy, including cooperatives,

the mutual aid companies, non-prot associations, oundations and social enterprises, supplies

a wide range o products and services in all Europe and generates millions o jobs. It represents

an opportunity or the non-governmental sector in Romania to reposition through certainsectors inside the Romanian society. However, despite the debates within the

non-governmental sector on the need to nd a viable alternative, independent solutions to und

their own activities, and despite the increasing popularity o and interest or the social economy,

there has never been noticed an obvious tendency o the non-governmental organizations in

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Romania to adopt entrepreneurship strategies.

On the grounds of the balance sheet data of NGO, one can nd that more than 8000

non-governmental organizations annually declare in their balance an economical

activity. Their number registered a decrease in 2008.

The incomes from economic activities of the non-governmental organizations2006-2008 increase in a slow rhythm and have an approximately constant weight o 17%

in the total incomes o the organizations, these incomes being acquired with a

propor tionally larger sta compared to the incomes rom activities without lucrative

purpose. These data can be the result o either a higher productivity o activities without

lucrative purpose and a higher economical eciency, or o a lower economic

perormance o economic activities.

The basis o nancial resources o the non-governmental sector remains ragile. The nancial

resources o 2/3 o the non-governmental organizations are low and very low, which limits their

action capacity.

In 2008, NGOs had total assets of RON 8,213,926,246 and in the same scal year, they

registered incomes o RON 5,339,855,854 (that is, about EUR 1.25 billion)

For the period 2006-2008, one can nd a constant increase of the assets and incomes

o the non-governmental sector the increase o assets being more accentuated than

o other incomes.

In the year 2008, 26.66% of the organizations had not registered any income for the

concerned scal year. 66.58% o the organizations either had no income, or had incomes

lower than RON 40,000.

Although the income sources o the non-governmental organizations have diversied, ew

o them receive support rom the public authorities. The most important income sources or

NGO remain those rom abroad, that is, grants rom the European Union and rom oreign or

international oundations.

Depending on the weight of funding sources in the incomes of the organizations,

oreign unds (the European Union and oundations or international or oreign

governmental institutions) remain the most important unding source or more than a

third o the organizations (35.2%). The national philanthropy (donations from companies, foundations and individuals) is

an important source o income or almost 18% o the organizations, and the public

sources (including directing the 2% o the tax) or almost 19% o the organizations.

The economic activities are the most important income source for 5.5% of the

organizations.

The mechanism 2% determined the transfer of EUR 57,480,987 (calculated at the

average exchange rate o the National Bank o Romania or the year when the transer

was perormed) or the tax years 2004 2008, the amount signicantly increasing every

year. Out o the total tax on income owed to the state budget, or the year 2008 the

taxpayers transerred 0.84%, almost hal o the amount available to be transerred bythe mechanism 2%.

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The civic involvement, citizens mobilization within the actions o non-governmental

organizations and volunteering, represent insuciently developed sources or the

sustainability o the non-governmental sector.

The public trust in NGOs has a slow, however constant, ascending trend. The opinion surveys

perormed in various moments, along more than a decade, indicate an ascending trend (slow,but constant) o the public image related to the non-governmental sector. According to the data

in March 2010, 32% o the Romanians trust much or very much the NGOs.

Nevertheless the public participation proportion o citizens in the activities o NGOs remains

low, due as well to the insucient preoccupation o the NGOs to choose their members and

volunteers.

There are no active policies amongst non-governmental organizations to attract new members.

Usually, the organizations preserve the original number o ounding members. The Barometer o

NGO Leaders showed that most o the organizations have below 10 members (49.6%). Amongstthe organizations with a high number o members, most o them are proessional organizations.

Volunteering keeps being an insuciently and ineciently promoted and exploited resource.

The public would rather make donations (especially or the church - 52% o the Romanian

citizens) than work as volunteers or the benet o the community, within an NGO (3.7%

o the Romanian citizens). However, the Barometer o NGO Leaders shows that most o the

non-governmental organizations (90%) works with volunteers, most o them declare not to have

any problems regarding volunteers involvement in their organizations and more than a hal

consider that the number o volunteers constantly involved in the activity o their organizations

is enough when compared to the needs o the organization.

The participation to drating and monitoring public policies or the beneft o the

citizens is one o the roles taken over by the NGO sector, in a context considered quite

unavourable.

A third o the NGOs in Romania declare to be involved in activities or infuencing public policies,

both at a national and local level. As well, only approx. 30% o the leaders o non-governmental

organizations are satised with the capacity o their organization to infuence public policy.

The leaders o NGO generally consider the climate in Romania less avourable or ecient

debates o public policies. According to the report, the leaders o non-governmental

organizations are distrustul o the democratic instincts o the politicians in Romania, they

would rather consider mass media to be an ally in promoting public debates and civic dialogue

and most o them think there is an exclusion risk rom public unding or the organizations which

state too obviously their disagreement related to public policy initiatives, at central or local level.

Most o the NGOs (57%) show an interest or participating to public policy decision, by

attending public consultations and sending their observations on legislative instrumentssubmitted to public debate. The number o observations transmitted by non-governmental

organizations to various public authorities within consultative processes increased by more

than 5 during the period 2003-2007, that is, according to ocial statistics, rom 2058 in 2003 to

11761 in 2007. Nonetheless, since 2008 one can notice a regress o the participation o NGOs to

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this type o debate.

The non-governmental organizations were actively involved in the stage o pre-accession

o Romania to the European Union and are amongst the most dynamic actors in absorbing

European unds during the post-adhesion period.

Along with the accession, the non-governmental sector lost an important political support:

the support o the Delegation o the European Commission in Romania and o the Embassies

o the member states. Without this support, many o the initiatives in the eld o democracy,

transparency and Europeanization o the state lost the audience and interest o the

political class, while the European Commission is no longer in the same strong position to

pressure the political class to adopt these reorms, in return o the progresses related to the

adhesion negotiations.

The Romanian non-governmental organizations contacted the European ederative structures

and, within the context o the European integration o Romania, they commenced adoptingstrategies similar to European organizations. Along with the accession to the EU, ollowing

the European organizational model, discussion started also in Romania about the utility o

developing (national) platorm. This new type o association o the non-governmental

organizations comes rom the supranational and intergovernmental character o the EU

and rom the need to represent its interest on European level. The policies aecting the

non-governmental organizations are no longer produced only in Bucharest, but more and more

in Brussels. From now on, one can notice the need to be represented in relation to European

institutions. The capacity o non-governmental organizations in Romania to infuence European

policies remains however limited.

Around 18% of the Romanian non-governmental organizations are associates in

national NGO networks, 13% attend European networks and 10% are aliated to

international networks.

The European structural unds had the potential to create a positive impact on the

non-governmental sector, opening new opportunities or innovation and development. But

the delays in launching the calls or projects, the bureaucracy, the aulty pre-unding and

reimbursement mechanism lead to major diculties or the non-governmental organizations

unded by these programmes.

Within the Human Resources Development Program funded by the European Social

Fund 2007-2013, more than 30 % o the beneciaries were non-governmental

organizations.

For almost 20% of the non-governmental organizations in Romania, European funds

represent the main unding source.

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Facts and fgures

1997

8503

1998

-666

1999

1866

2000

870

2001

333

2002

10567

2003

-164

2004

-293

2005

18589

2006

6166

2007

4751

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

Unions

Federations

Foundations

Associations71%

27%

1%1%

71 %

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Sports andrecreational

activities

Culture

Social

Health

Education

Mutual aidcenters

Veterinary andanimal husbandry

activities

Activities ofemployees

associations

Activities ofreligious

organizations

Activities of

professionalorganizations

Activities of officialminorities

organizations

Activities ofeconomical and

syndicateorganizations

11,4

14,0

18,8

0,3

0,3

0,4

9,2

10,0

7,3

2,5

2,6

4,7

18,7

21,7

7,5

5,8

2,0

2,2

3,7

4,1

1,6

0,8

0,3

0,5

2,9

3,7

3,6

5,0

8,06,2

0,2

0,3

0,2

8,9

4,4

3,5

Weight on annual incomes (%)

Weight of the staff (%)

Weight of active legal persons (which submitted the balance on 31.12.2008) (%)

2 000 000 000

Fixed

assets

total (RON)

Total incomes

(RON)

2007 2008

4 000 000 000

6 000 000 000

8 000 000 000

10 000 000 000

2006

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Weight incomes

More than 10 mil. RON 36,670,32

35,623,61

9,823,52

8,937,03

7,2318,94

1,7239,92

0,0026,66

1 000 000 9 999 999 RON

500 000 999 999 RON

200 000 499 999 RON

40 000 199 999 RON

Below 40 000 RON

0 RON

Weight organizations

0

Weight of staff regarding

the activities without

patrimonial purpose

Fixed assets total

Total incomes

No.employees

ThousandRON

Staff regarding

economical or

financial activities

2 000

4 000

6 000

8 000

10 000

02006 2007 2008

80 000

25 000

50 000

100 000

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12/16

Incomes from activities without patrimonial purpose

Incomes from activities with special destination

Incomes from economical activities

2006 2007 2008

3 078 242

659 640

843 196

882 195

3 746 4734 395 042

56 687

45 973

62 619

0

10000000

20000000

30000000

1 500 000

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

3 000 000

8 511 125

14 777 871

29 825 125

-80

-60

-40

-20

0

20

40

19%

-65%

1 1 11 4 7 1

%05-%05- -51% -53%

13%

26% 29%31% 32%

High + a great deal

Low + very low

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23,5 %

16,2 %

11,8 %

15,3 %

33,2 %

Highly

In some extent

In small extent

Not at all

Non-answers

Actions performed one or several timesvolunteering

work for church

or community

volunteering work

for a non-govern-

mental organization

Sex%4%32Male

%4%51Female

Age%4%9years old92-81

%5%12years old44-03

%5%91years old95-54

%1%42years old and more06

Studies

%1%91Less than or equal to 8 grades%4%52Vocational School/10 grades

%5%51High School, Post-secondary

%5%51College, Faculty

Social

category

Department Managers and Private Undertakers 19 % 4 %

Civil Servants with Upper Studies and Skilled Staff 15 % 6 %

Skilled Workers and Civil Servants with average studies 17 % 3 %

Unskilled workers and other servants with minimum

studies

Income perhousehold

%3%82Low (below 1120 RON/month)

%6%71Average (1121-1960 RON/month)

%3%51High (more 1960 RON/month)

Historical

region

Transilvania, Banat, Criana, Maramure 20 % 4 %

%3%41aegorboD,ainetnuM,ainetlO

%3%82avodloM

%6%9Bucharest

Size of

locality

%3%8Cities with more than200K inhabitants

%5%31Towns 50-200K inhabitants

%4%51Towns sub 50K inhabitants

%4%82Rural localities

%4%91latoT

23 % 3 %

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At national level (laws,Governmental Decisions,orders, others)

At county level(decisions of thecounty council etc.)

At local level (decisionsof the local council etc.)

Yes, totally

Yes, in some extent

No

I do not know/answer

The organization did not formulateproposals for altering public decisionsNon-answers

2,5 9,9 15,3 4,2 38,2 29,9

3,435,149.34,213,56,2

4,4 11,6 12,5 3,7 38,3 29,5

Regression

Financial

Fund raising

Human resources

Volunteering

Corporate socialresponsibility (CSR)

Image

Participation to

European networks

Others

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70-10

-11 26,8 29,5

-10,4 31,9 20,5

-4,9 39 20,7

6,826,431,3-

-1,7 40,9 14,4

2,334,138,0-

2,23237,0-

-0,2 21 3,1

No impact Positive impact

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Associations

Foundations

Assistance public services

Specialized services at county level

Specialized services at local level

Religious cults

Social assistance units

Medico-social assistance units

Self-employed entities

29%

20%31%

3%

8%

4%3% 2%

0%

on-profitprivate

liers(associations

andfoundations)

Specialized

servicesat

countylevel

Specialized

servicesat

locallevel

Religious

cults

Social

assistance

units

Medico-social

assistanceunits

Assistance

public

services

7 776

1 132 1 018545 396 372

4 456

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0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

Copii

979292

8391 444

7 318

10 192

6 994

2 765

Btrni Persoane cuhandicap Altele

Bugete locale

Bugete ONG

0

50

100

150

Occupation

quota

Quota of demand

timeout

87,8

93,4

21,6

53,1

95,4104,4

Local budgets

NGO budgets

Other sources

Statistic data in the field of

education (December 31, 2008)

1 EUR = 3.9852

Statistic data for the 28 accredited

private Universities (List according

to www.edu.ro, April 2010)

1 EUR = 3.9852

% altogether

Education

Field

RON EURO RON EURO

Fixed assets 1 021 049 990 256 210 476 727 554 035 182 563 996 71,26%

Incomes from AFSL 1 121 549 357 281 428 625 759 357 054 190 544 277 67,71%

Incomes from deeds

with special destination384 949 96 595

Incomes from

economical activities

67 091 686 16 835 212 5 298 815 1 329 623 7,90%

Total incomes 1 189 025 992 302 007 410 764 655 869 191 873 901 64,31%

Romania 2010

Non Governmental Sector

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