Technical Assistance for
Civil Society Organisations
Regional Office
This project is funded
by the European Union.
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to officially welcome you to the Regional Strategic Workshop: “Connecting the
Links – Capacities and Relations between CSOs and the Media”.
CSOs in the IPA region are dealing with numerous challenges in their working environments.
Due to the nature of their day-to-day work, and fast paced information society, one of the
most significant challenges for CSOs is communication and in particular media relations.
The TACSO project is aware of the importance of encouraging members of the CSO
community to develop their own links to the media. During the past four years, TACSO was
continuously trying to widen its approach in assisting CSOs to get their message across to
their publics.
Many different events have been held by TACSO in this regard - round tables on “Civil Sector
and media – Challenges and opportunities” in Serbia; trainings on Public and Media
Relations in Albania, Serbia, Macedonia and Turkey; Social Media Surgery in Turkey; Social
Media training for CSOs in Macedonia are just some of the events.
However, TACSO noted that there are missing links in regards to the relations between CSOs
on the one side and the media on the other. TACSO decided to investigate that missing link,
which resulted in the report “The Missing Link: CSO – Media Relations”.
The indicated missing link is shown to be a lack of understanding and miscommunication
between the CSOs and media and vice versa.
In addition, recent findings in the region show a more or less clear direction for the relations
between CSOs and the media. This direction indicates that the trust between the media and
CSOs is not very high; the media do not see CSOs as a helper in building democracy and
reaching the citizens; while CSOs do not see the media as an independent actor towards the
civil society and the citizens; and neither have strategies on how to work together.
The results of the workshop will hopefully provide an initial baseline for the plans on the
short and long term perspective for developing the capacities of CSOs and the media in
regards to procedures, standards and strategies in the local context with a specific focus on
CSOs.
On behalf of SIPU we hope that this will be a step forward to a better understanding of the
complex relations which exists in each country, and that we will be a step closer in assisting
you to connect the links.
Thank you!
TACSO Regional Office • Potoklinica 16 • 71 000 Sarajevo • t: +387 33 532 757 • f: +387 33 532 757 • e-mail: info@tacso.org
SIPU International AB Sweden • Civil Society Promotion Centre Bosnia and Herzegovina • Human Resource Development Foundation Turkey
Foundation in Support of Local Democracy Poland • Partners Foundation for Local Development Romania