“Yuzhnyi Kazakhstan”, #153 (17.909), 15/12/2004
Director of NGO “Sana Sezim”
K. Abysheva

   In contrast to the civilized nations of the world, Kazakhstan has virtually no history of NGOs. The non-governmental sector begun to develop only after its independence, when the country started its democratic transformation. While the State has focused on addressing global challenges, the third sector has taken over the work to address the issues of the citizens. The efforts of NGOs, through foreign investment which began to arrive in the humanitarian sphere, encouraged projects to improve the population’s legal education and the electoral literacy.
   In October last year, in Astana, the first Civil Forum was held where NGOs participated and testified about the increasing influence of the third sector in society. There was also much of a focus on state cooperation. The interaction of non-governmental organizations with the government shows that the system works.
   A key mechanism of this is a public social order. Recently, eight winners were identified for doing socially important projects, by the Department of Youth and Domestic Policy. In other words, today there is cooperation between the State and NGOs, which will surely play a role in building an open society and effectively addressing the social problems of the population.