“NGO and Mass Media for civil society development” is a project supported by Nordic Council of Ministers, based on necessity to bring together two important and most effective instruments for public participation – NGOs and mass media; encourage them to find a common approach and make joint efforts on civil society development in Russia.

The main goal of the project is to facilitate closer interaction between NGOs from different fields of activities and mass media of different kinds (press, radio, TV and information agencies), which will lead to the long term partnership and will contribute to the development of civil society.

The project includes organization of “relationships building” seminars for NGOs and mass media, study visits for representatives both NGOs and mass media, round tables on topics of vital importance for society, development of web site www.civic-media.org as a common space to exchange of reliable information between NGO’s and mass media representatives and to facilitate discourse opportunities on problematic of great public interest.

International Forum "Civic-media: NGO and mass media cooperation for the civil society development" held on 20-21 November, 2009 was a key event in the framework of the project. The Forum became an arena for information and experience exchange between representatives of NGOs and mass media. During the Forum participations from NW part of Russia, Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Germany and Latvia discussed important topics of civil society development on agenda, like freedom of mass media, public participation, cooperation between GOs and NGOs, civil dialog.

The Forum has also become a starting point for organizing future meetings on more specific topics of the NGO and mass media cooperation.