On 23 January 2016, Ukrainian-Hungarian Regional Development Centre held a Civil Forum in Berehovo (Ukraine) as the closing event in the frame of the “Visegrad civil bridge to Ukraine” project. The main goal of the event was to present the project results and create an additional opportunity for the local NGOs and experts from V4 countries to share experiences, discuss joint initiatives and establish strong cooperation links.

The Forum started with presenting the obtained results of the project, which has been implemented since 1 February 2016 in the frame of the Visegrad Eastern Partnership Program (V4EAP).

Karolina Dancs, project manager from the Ukrainian-Hungarian Regional Development Centre, made a brief presentation of the organization and successful projects implemented within the last 10 years, especially those that were co-financed by the International Visegrad Fund. She summarized the results of the “Visegrad civil bridge to Ukraine” project and expressed her expectations that the knowledge and experience obtained by the local NGOs would help them to intensify their activity.

The Civil Forum was also attended by the V4 partner organizations and experts which moderated the training sessions. They made brief presentations in which assessed the success of the project and their own experience gained from communicating with local Ukrainian NGOs.

Marzena Kacprowics from the Good Network Foundation (Poland) highly evaluated the activity of the civil sector in Ukraine. She emphasized that strong local and cross-border partnership as well as an active involvement of the volunteers could really lead to the creation and sustainable development of the civil sector in Ukraine.

Jan Kroupa, an expert from the Czech Fundraising Centre, expressed his gratitude to all the project participants and partners for successful implementation of the project. He noted that his organization was ready to cooperate with everyone on providing expertize assistance to the Ukrainian NGOs and finding reliable partners in V4 countries for the joint initiatives implementation.

Endre Varga from the Public Benefit Association for the Civil Network of Veszprém County (Hungary) also noted a great importance of creating strong partnerships between the civil sector and local authorities in Ukraine. He said that joint planning, joint financing and joint implementation are the core preconditions for the sustainable regional development and effective control of the authorities by the civil sector.

Maria Kulcsar from the Forum Information Centre (Slovakia) also thanked to all the participants and project partners and call everyone to actively take part in the regional EU initiatives directed at creation and development of the civil sector in Ukraine. She noted that partners from V4 states and especially Forum Information Centre are ready to share all their experience and best practices with Ukrainian civil organization.

All the project participants from the Ukrainian NGOs received the Certificates. They also thanked to all the experts and project partners and expressed their confidence that obtained knowledge would help them very much to develop their organizations on democratic principles.