Content No. 8/9

Civilsociety.hr No. 8/9, 2006

Dear Readers / Cvjetana Plavša-Matić /

General public attitude towards NGOs is more positive than all the previous research had shown / Renata Franc, Ph.D. /

Public relations in civil society organizations gather more and more momentum / Suzana Kunac, M.Sc. /

In the civil society organizations' public relations, the motive for creating publicity is more important than the presentation of the organisation itself / Božo Skoko, M.Sc. /

How to carefully develop and successfully implement a communication campaign / Mirela Holy, Ph.D. /

GUERRILLA COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES

Greenpeace has developed its own methodology for carrying out non-violent actions which are attractive to the media, and which serve as public warning about environmental problems / Sanja Čavec-Kavicki /

The civil society glossary: PUBLIC ADVOCATING / Sanja Sarnavka /

Let us represent some useful Web sites: www.huoj.hr

Anne Gregory, Campaign Planning and Management, Zagreb: HUOJ, 2006

The Myth of CSR / Deborah Doane, Stanford Social Innovation Review

IPA - THE NEW FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT FOR Pre-Accession Assistance / Renata Mikuš /

Questions? Answers. / Marija Zuber, M.Sc., Računovodstvo i financije

From all sides

PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) in Lebanon Dear readers

You are looking at a double issue of Civilnodruštvo.hr magazine which is dedicated to a rather unexplored topic, at least in Croatia, namely the public relations in civil society organizations or in the non-profit sector as a whole.

In conversations with activists and employees of civil society organizations you will almost always hear that the two biggest problems in their activities are space and financial assets. Recently, there is another problem very often mentioned beside those two, and that is poor visibility of civil society organizations work in public and difficulties which organizations encounter in attempts to present their activities.

Therefore we are especially pleased that our magazine, Civilnodruštvo.hr, is the first in Croatia to publish the research papers on this topic, thus presenting the specificities of public relations in non-profit or civil society organizations. The double issue also brings an overview of some very interesting reports on how public relations are managed nationally and abroad, about the management principles in communication campaigns, about the way of communicating with the media and the targeted public, about the shaping of a message with the purpose of attracting the public attention and about how to prepare and successfully implement a communication campaign with practical instructions and examples of good practice.

Furthermore, we present the article on social responsibility of companies which "uncovers" the myth about this movement which became the priority of all leading world companies. After The Economist devoted last year an entire issue to the subject of social responsibility of companies, the article which you can read in Civilnodruštvo.hr magazine is the first integral observation of this phenomenon from the aspect of civil society organizations, but also of growing challenges of globalization which are already before us.

Also, we are facing new forms of European Union assistance to Croatia in pre-accession period, which are dealt with in the article about the IPA - Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance - which supports the preparation for the full EU membership of the candidate countries.

In this double issue, we have decided to provide all our subscribers with the Croatian edition of an expert, and above all practical book - Campaign Planning and Management by Anne Gregory, published by the Croatian Public Relations Association. To all those who are preparing for the organization of a campaign, but also to those who already have some experience with it, this book makes a valuable guide through the process of campaign planning and management, with simply presented alphabet of public communication.

Our regular sections: "The Civil Society Glossary", "You Ask? We Answer." and "From All Sides" traditionally bring short interesting news from the world of activism and international relations, but also answers to questions related to professional and responsible accounting in civil society organizations.

It is our hope that the texts published in this issue will be of your interest and that you will decide, if you haven't already decided, to subscribe to the magazine. We would also like to remind you that Civilnodruštvo.hr is a bilingual bimonthly magazine which is also published in electronic form on the www.civilnodrustvo.hr portal, and on the web site of the National Foundation for Civil Society Development, http://zaklada.civilnodrustvo.hr, while the printed publication is available only through subscription.

We hereby invite all our current subscribers who have still not renewed their subscriptions to do so for the second year of publishing of Civilnodruštvo.hr, and also to thank them for their trust.

As we are aware that such an important and comprehensive magazine would not be possible without a feedback from our subscribers and wider interested public, we hereby invite you to help us by sending your proposals and comments to the fax no.: 01/23 99 111, or to the e- mail address: [email protected]

Enjoy your reading,

Cvjetana Plavša-Matić

Visibility of NGOs and public attitudes towards them: results of a public opinion research (July 2005, Ivo Pilar Institute, ordered by: Academy for Educational Development)

General public attitude towards NGOs is more positive than all the previous research had shown

This research has indicated the need for greater presence of NGOs and their work in the media, especially on television, by showing greater activity (or better media coverage) in the areas which the largest part of the public considers problematic, as well as the need to solve specific problems related to the efforts to eliminate the suspiciousness towards NGOs, especially when talking about the real goals of founding NGOs and ethics in management of money.

Renata Franc, Ph.D., Research Fellow Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences, Zagreb e-mail: [email protected]

Development and successfulness of the civil society in general, and of NGOs as a part of civil society organizations, depends to a large extent on public knowledge of NGOs and their activities, as well as on attitudes towards NGOs. So far in Croatia only a few polls were carried out which were entirely or partially focused on issues of visibility and public attitudes towards the NGOs, and the last among those was the research Public attitudes on Nongovernmental Organizations, which was carried out in July 2005 by the Ivo Pilar Institute of Social Sciences for the purposes of the Academy for Educational Development. Complete research results are publicly available in the form of a research report on the AED's Internet site (http://www.aed.hr/hr/publications.asp#surveys), while this article presents the basic results showing public acquaintance with NGOs and their activities, as well as public attitudes towards them. Visibility of NGOs The data on public acquaintance with the term NGO (Figure 1) says that the vast majority of the citizens of the Republic of Croatia (83.3%) heard the expression NGO (or nongovernmental organization), but only about half (43.3%) stated that they know the meaning of the expression, while 40% of the citizens heard the term, but do not know its precise meaning.

Data on the acquaintance with the names of NGOs which deal with particular fields of work indicate even more realistically that there is still much space left for further increase of NGOs visibility and public familiarity with their work. Accordingly, the questions related to the familiarity with the names of NGOs which deal with particular fields of work established that about one quarter of the public (24.1%) could not name an NGO from any of 16 analyzed areas. About one third of the public (33%) stated the names of some NGOs from one or two areas, something less than a third (28.7%) from three to five areas in which NGOs operate. About 15% of the public named an NGO from six to ten analyzed areas, and less than 1% of the citizens stated the name of an NGOs from eleven or more fields of work. Figure 2 shows the proportion of the citizens who could name a specific NGO from a particular field of its activity.

The quoted data (Figure 2) show that the largest proportion of the public (39.2%) knows the name of at least one NGO which deals with the problems of war veterans and war victims, followed by NGOs from the area of environmental protection, political organizations and campaigns, problems of the poor, consumer rights and gender equality (for which the name was stated by more than one third to one quarter of the public). The areas for which a relatively small proportion of the public (up to 5%) can state the name of at least one NGO are those dealing with the status of national minorities, civil society development, unemployment, art and culture, education and religious affiliation and freedom. As the poll established that for the majority of citizens (78.2%) the media are the basic source of information on NGOs' work (and 61.4% of the citizens specified television as the most important source of information among the media), data on the acquaintance with the names of specific NGOs indirectly show the types of NGOs which are the most and the least represented by the media, primarily by the television.

In order to establish to what extent the citizens recognize NGOs as organizations to which they can turn in case of personal encounter with particular problems in the community, and how NGOs are perceived in relation to other organizations or institutions, the poll listed 15 different problems (Figure 3), and for each problem the respondents were supposed to chose one of 14 proposed answers, depending on whether they would react to the problem and which of the proposed 12 institutions or organizations they would most probably contact if they decided to act on i.

The results (Figure 3) clearly showed that the largest portion of citizens (one third) would contact an NGO in case of personal encounter with the problem of environmental protection. This is also the only one of 15 problems in connection with which the choice of NGO (in relation to other proposed organizations or institutions) is the most frequent. Along with the mentioned results, according to which the environmental NGOs, after the veterans', are the ones which are known to the proportionally largest proportion of the public (36.2 % - Figure 2), these data indicate that NGOs which deal with environmental protection are not only the best known and recognized among different NGOs, but also that they enjoy significant trust among the citizens as compared to other organizations and institutions.

Behind the areas of environmental protection, according to the share of citizens who would turn to an NGO as opposed to other organizations or institutions, follow the areas dealing with the problems of individuals with different sexual orientation and gender inequality, for which about one fifth of the citizens would address some NGO. As opposed to this, a very small share of citizens (up to 5%) would contact NGOs in case of personal encounter with the problems of corruption, child abuse, poverty, unemployment, violence and poor economy, which indicates that for these areas NGOs are least recognized as the ones who could help in solving the problem. On the other hand, it is the problems of unemployment, poor economy, poverty, corruption and child abuse that the majority of citizens perceive as large problems in Croatian society, i.e. in their town or local community.

Public Attitudes towards NGOs At the level of general attitude towards NGOs, the research findings point to the fact that the majority of the public expresses a positive relationship towards NGOs, so that 73.2 % of the citizens believes that the work of NGOs is more or less beneficial for the society (this belief is shared by 84.7% of the citizens bellow 30), and only 1.3% of the public thinks that the work of NGOs is harmful or very harmful for the society (Figure 4).

Along with the general attitude, the poll also examined the presence of a considerable number of specific attitudes, of which we here mention the data on positive opinion about the importance and the role of NGOs in the society (Figure 5), government's attitude towards NGOs (Figure 6), adverse opinions on actual goals and financial transparency of NGOs (Figure 7), data on estimated contribution of NGOs' activities (Figure 8) and the existing and desirable level of influence of NGOs (Figure 9).

Although with slightly smaller proportion in relation to the general attitude, majority of the citizens expresses a positive attitude towards NGOs also at the level of specific attitudes. Therefore, between 47% and 55% of the citizens agrees with the claims which express positive opinion on the importance and the role of NGOs in the society (Figure 5), and 52% to 65% of the citizens agrees with the claims that the authorities should encourage the work of NGOs (Figure 6). At the same time, a considerable part of the public shares also a certain suspiciousness towards NGOs in view of their actual goals and financial transparency (Figure 7), so that 44.6% of the citizens agrees with the claim that NGOs often have some additional goals which are not public and visible at first sight, that is, 24.7% does not agree with the claim that the majority of NGOs and their members are honest and ethical in their management of money.

The data from Figure 8 show that the citizens mostly believe that NGOs' primarily contribute to raising people's awareness of their rights, civil society development and democracy development in Croatia, but that they have less success with solving specific life problems and improving the quality of life. According to the data collected in this poll, only a fifth of the citizens directly (personally or through a family member) felt useful consequences of some NGO's work, most often some advice (8%) or easier information access (5%). With regard to the estimate of influence of NGOs at a local level, regional level and at the level of entire Croatia, but also in the fields relevant for the everyday life, the proportionally largest share of the public (between 37 % and 43 %) considers that the influence of NGOs is small, and another 15 % to 22 % of the citizens think that their influence is negligible (Figure 9). On the other hand, to the question of what amount of influence, at the analyzed levels, NGOs should have, the proportionally most common answer (from 40 % to 50 % of the citizens) was that the NGOs should have a large influence, and more than a third of the citizens believes that the influence should be medium (Figure 9). In other words, only 10 % of the citizens believe that the NGOs at analyzed levels should have small influence or no influence at all. The mentioned data can also be interpreted as an indicator of public readiness for even more positive attitude towards NGOs.

Instead of the Conclusion Based on the results of this research we can say that, although the majority of the citizens know the term NGO, the public is generally still not adequately familiar either with the expression itself, or with the names and the work of specific NGOs. The general attitude of the publics towards NGOs is positive and also consistently more positive than was shown by the research findings from the beginning of 2000s. Furthermore, the citizens are more satisfied with the contribution of NGOs to the increase of individual awareness of their rights, civil society development and democracy development, than with the contribution of NGOs to the solving of specific life problems. A part of the citizens feel a certain suspiciousness towards NGOs, but at the same time there prevails the opinion that the material status of NGOs should be improved and that they should have the a stronger influence on the decision-making, from the local to the national level.

For the purpose of further increase of visibility of NGOs and improvement of their public image this research indicates the need for greater presence of NGOs and their work in the media, especially on television, more intensive activities (or better media coverage) in fields which a great part of the public considers the most problematic, and especially in the sense of solving specific problems related to elimination of the present suspiciousness towards NGOs in the sense of actual goals of their work and ethics in the management of money.

Public relations in civil society organizations gather more and more momentum

Preliminary results of the research: Contribution of civil society organizations to democratization processes in the Republic of Croatia

In the past 5 years, 90 Croatian associations which deal with human rights and democratization made 7,805 public appearances in the media, held 1,243 press conferences, sent 5,736 press releases, organized more than 50 different campaigns which aimed at drawing public attention to major social problems.

Author: Suzana Kunac, Women's Human Rights Group - B.a.b.e. (Be active, be emancipated)

The research "Public attitudes towards nongovernmental organizations" which was conducted in 2005 by the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar for the purposes of the Academy for Educational Development (AED) has shown that almost half of the interviewed subjects (47.4%) know the correct meaning of the term association; 43.8% of them only heard the term but did not know its correct meaning, while a quarter of citizens failed to mention at least one association in any field of activity. Such research results motivated us to explore all the activities which the associations from the field of human rights and democratization conduct, in order to, among other things, better acquaint the citizens with the meaning of the term association.

The research Contribution of civil society organizations to democratic processes in the Republic of Croatia, which was conducted in April this year by the B.a.b.e. association, and which was financed by the National Foundation for Civil Society Development, was performed on the sample of 90 civil society organizations by using the method of semi- structured interviews. Organizations which were included in the research belonged to different fields of activity: youth rights, children's rights, rights of the disabled, consumer rights, patients' rights, women's rights, human rights, environmental protection, rights of ethnic minorities, rights of sexual minorities, protection of civil rights and liberties, rights of trafficking victims, rights of asylum seekers, rights of the victims of corruption, social and economic rights. The study focused on the question of how and in what way the associations organize the public relations which they use to inform the general public, i.e. the citizens, about their activities.

The basic assumption was that those associations which strive to gain the support of the widest public in solving general social problems would dedicate the greatest amount of energy to public relations.

Before saying something about the method of sampling and presenting preliminary results of the research, I would like to point out to some data obtained from the Ivo Pilar research (2005).

According to the results from this research, 33% of the citizens recognized the work of associations dealing with "political organizations and campaigns" and, according to the findings of this study, they hold the high third position. The only associations positioned higher than the political organizations and campaigns were those which deal with Homeland War defenders/victims and those dealing with the ecology/environmental protection. According to these results, GONG is the organization whose activity is recognized by the largest number of examinees - 99% recognized GONG's activities in the field of media campaigns of civil society organizations and monitoring the work of politicians, 35% placed GONG in the field of civil society development, while 16% of the citizens was familiar with GONG's work at the level of (civil) education.

HHO (Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights) is another association whose goals and activities were recognized by the citizens in several categories of activities - 65% of the interviewees related HHO with human rights; 53% linked it with the issues of national minorities, while 22% saw HHO also as the association which participates in the development of civil society. In the area of consumer rights, the most prominent was the association Potrošač (eng. Consumer) which was mentioned by 98% citizens. In the area of gender equality and women's rights the most prominent was the Women's Human Rights Group B.a.B.e. (87%). Research sample

The basis for the research sample was obtained from the list of donor associations, lists of networks, forums and coalitions, as well as lists of the Government Office for Cooperation with NGOs, Government Office for Human Rights, Government Office for the Promotion of Gender Equality, National Foundation for Civil Society Development (2005). Based on these lists the final list of civil society organizations was drawn up and taken as the final list of associations which were active in the field of human rights and democratization. That list contained 240 civil society organizations which were structured in two ways: according to geographical regions of operation (Zagreb, Istria, Dalmatia, Slavonija) and according to fields of activities (youth, women's rights, peace organizations and organizations dealing with the promotion of human rights, community development, the disabled, national minorities, sexual and gender minorities, environmental protection, consumer protection and patients' protection...).

The sample of 90 organizations was obtained by calculating in the total number of organizations in particular region the percentage of organization's presence based on its field of activity. Then, by using random sampling (e.g. every second or every third organization from the list) we made a list of 100 organizations which were taken as the representative sample. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that this sample is only indicatively representative (regardless of the complex procedure of sampling) because it was impossible to determine the precise number of active organizations which, based on their mission and goals, deal with the protection of human rights and democratization. However, even according to the Register of Associations which is kept at the Ministry of Justice - the protection of rights is pursued by only 1% of civil society organizations - which (without checking if they are active or not) would amount to 283.5 associations, so that 90 organizations of those 283.5 could be taken as a more or less representative sample.

Aida Bagić, Map d.o.o. (2006)

Preliminary research results For the purposes of this article we have singled out only those research results which refer to public relations, i.e. communication between associations and citizens and the media, and which proceeded through various programs, activities, work methods.

Our main interest was to determine how many organizations from this civil society subgroup explicitly use public advocating/lobbying and media activism as their separate programs.

Of 90 civil society organizations covered by this research, 23 of them or 25.6% stated that public advocating/lobbying was one of their major programs, while 18 NGOs said that media activism (20%) was a separate form of their activities.

There is also indicative information according to which 61.1% of NGOs says that the consumers of their activities are the "general public", while only 11 NGOs or 12.2% includes the media as consumers of their activities.

When asked about the methods which they use in realization of their missions and goals, 43 NGOs (47.7%) mentioned public actions, 32.2% mentioned media campaigns, and 40.0% methods of public advocating.

Probably the most interesting information on the ways in which civil society organizations from this subgroup communicate with citizens and participate in public domain is the number of held press conferences, public appearances in the media and statements sent to the media.

The total number of the held press conferences according to the first preliminary research results was 1,243 in 5 years held by 56 NGOs, which makes the average of 22 press conferences per organization in 5 years or 4 conferences per year.

The question about the number of press conferences held in the past 5 years was not answered by 6 NGO, while 22 of them stated that they did not hold any press conferences in the mentioned period.

To the question about the number of public appearances in the past 5 years, only two associations 5 replied that they did made any, and 6 did not respond to this question. Thus 82 of them made 7805 public appearances, which makes averagely 95 public declarations per organization - from which follows that each organization made, on average, 19 public appearances per year.

Organizations included in the sample also answered the question about the number of press releases sent in the mentioned period. Five organizations did not answer to this question, and 9 of 85 NGOs which stated specific numbers declared that they did not sent a single press release in the five-year period.

Of 76 organizations which communicated in this way with the media and the public - the total number of press releases sent in the mentioned period was 5,736 - which makes an average of 75 announcements sent in five years per organization.

The most visible campaigns of civil society organizations The question about the participation in campaigns of civil society organizations as a separate instrument of public advocating the organizations included in this research gave the following answers - 8 of them said that in 5 year they did not participate in any campaign of civil society organizations, while one organization did not answer the question at all.

The largest number of civil society organizations - 13 of them - answered that they participated in 2 campaigns; 12 organizations stated that they actively participated in 5 different campaigns; 10 organizations participated in 3 different campaigns; 9 organizations reported the participation in 10 campaigns; 7 organizations in 4 different campaigns; 6 organizations in 20 campaigns, etc.

These data lead to the following conclusion - the largest number of civil society organizations covered by this research (80) participated in activities of one or more different campaigns and the most of them (them 13) in two different campaigns of civil society organizations in the past 5 years.

More than 50 different campaigns which were listed by the interviewees from civil society organizations we have separated 10 different campaigns which were the most frequently mentioned. Thus we obtained the list of 10 most recognizable campaigns according to the opinion of civil society organizations, and those are:

1. 16 Days of Activism 2. Druzba Adria ProjectGONGs election campaigns 3. GONGs election campaigns 4. GRAK - Civic Activism Campaign 5. Love is Love 6. Matija Gubec 7. No more wars! 8. Campaign against trafficking 9. Anticorruption campaign 10. Kampaign 51%

However, we were interested in civil society organizations opinion as to which of these campaigns was the most successful.

16 Days of Activism as a separate campaign was singled out by 31 organizations, i.e. one third of interviewees. Of 31 interviewees 29% believes that this campaign was completely successful, 58% considers it partially successful, 10% estimates that the campaign was neither successful nor unsuccessful, and only one organization thinks that the campaign was partially unsuccessful.

GONG's election campaigns were particularly singled out by 21 organization and 58% (or 12 organizations) considers GONG's campaigns partially successful, while 43% (or 9 organizations) thinks that those election campaigns were completely successful. Love is Love, the campaign for the rights of sexual minorities, was mentioned by 14 organizations as the one which they noticed in the previous period, and 10 of those organizations considered the campaign partially successful.

GRAK campaign was singled out by 19 organizations of which 37% (or 7 organizations) considered it partially successful, while 37% claimed that the campaign was neither successful nor unsuccessful. Three organizations believed that the campaign was completely unsuccessful.

Druzba Adria Project was noticed by 24 organizations of which 54% (or 14 organizations) considered it completely successful and 31% partially successful.

The other campaigns: Matija Gubec, No More Wars!, 51%, Anticorruption campaign and Campaign against trafficking were mentioned by a considerably smaller number of organizations.

Public relations in NGOs gather more and more momentum

According to the preliminary data from the research Contributions of civil society organizations to democratization processes in the Republic of Croatia, we could say that civil society organizations which deals with protection of human rights and democratization invest a lot of energy into informing the public about its activities, and also into continuous public reactions in connection with field of activity of each organization.

The fact that this subgroup of civil society organizations made 7,805 public appearances, held 1,243 press conferences, sent 5,736 press releases, organized more than 50 different civil society campaigns in the past 5 years, shows an outstanding effort and engagement to acquaint the public with the work of civil society organizations, but also with major social problems which these organizations tried to put on the agenda and open them to the public.

Likewise, the results of this research show that the campaigns conducted by civil society organizations in the past five years brought to the focus of public domain the topics which were not publicly discussed, which contributed to the visibility of particular civil society organizations.

Public relations in civil society organizations

In the civil society organizations' public relations, the motive for creating publicity is more important than the presentation of the organisation itself

Public relations in the nonprofit sector must satisfy several special principles. The first purpose of the publicity is to sell an idea, and the second is to sell its method of implementation. The promotional material must appeal equally to the emotions and the intelligence. Promotion must have continuity, and all the campaign elements must be connected by a shared leit-motif. In addition, promotion must always stay positive, and not negative.

Božo Skoko, M.Sc., Public Relations Department, Faculty of Political Science, Zagreb Nonprofit organisations are extremely depending on public opinion, i.e. their image in the society, and therefore their public relations have an indispensable role in the promotion of the organisation itself, presentation of its work to the public, and building public confidence. Almost all non-profit organizations depend solely on public support. On the other hand, all these organisations are often exposed to the influences and interrelations of various social, political and economic trends and currents, which demand sophisticated communication management and efficient public relations.

The motive for publicity is more important than the presentation of the organisation itself

The American public relations theorists Cutlip, Center and Broom have concluded that public relations in majority of non-profit organizations endeavour to realize the following objectives: to gain support for the organisation's mission, to develop the communication channels with those segments of the public to which the organisation serves, to create and maintain the favourable climate for fund raising, to stimulate the development and the survival of the public policy which is inclined to the organisation and its mission, to keep informed and to motivate the key organizational segments of the public (such as employees, volunteers and commissioners) to devote themselves to the organisation's objectives and support them productively. Although the stated missions are close to the majorities of the organisations in the civil sector, the tactical approach and the techniques of public relations are rather different from one organisation to another. Some organisations have only one employee dealing with public relations, i.e. carrying out a fairly simple, unstructured publicity campaign, while the others have large professional departments, with appropriate means and support of outer consultants, who put together strategic plans for communication based on research. In majority of the organisations which have no means for marketing activities, the role of public relations is to keep the public informed, to create the favourable climate in the environment and quality public relations, but simultaneously to encourage donating. Public relations in nonprofit sector, unlike in other sectors, must also satisfy some special principles. Accordingly, the motive for creating publicity is always more important than the presentation of the organisation itself. The first purpose of the publicity is to sell an idea, and the second is to sell its method of implementation. The promotional material must appeal equally to the emotions and the intelligence. Promotion must have continuity, and all the campaign elements must be connected by a shared leit-motif. In addition, promotion must always stay positive, and not negative.

How to use public relations?

Neither marketing nor public relations are exact sciences. Advertising often has an identifiable audience, the means of measuring successes and a clear objective. Public relations require the same. Both require creativeness and imaginativeness, which can keep the attention of an audience in a rare moment of relaxation in a hasty day. Public relations in the nonprofit sector can invest large amounts of money in raising public awareness, but the investments can also be small, like the budget for contingencies of a corporation. However, the effects are never proportional to the amount invested. If the project is approached creatively, even with the smaller amount of money can the purpose be achieved. Along this way, the media can be an excellent support, owing to the fact that good public relations, i.e. relations with media, can provide you with "free" promotional space. If you cannot afford to spend on advertising, but have the intention to use the media in the course of a marketing campaign, you must understand that the media have a life of their own. The journalists have no obligation to present your story your way. You are relying on the third party to tell your story, and that involves risk. On the other hand, although there are no guarantees for the message, you can obtain a very wide audience and achieve a similar effect as if having invested in advertising. A significant part of public relations as an activity is the readiness to react to other stories. You may have spent a year planning promotional activities, and a week before D-day a story appears, which clearly enters your domain. Do not miss the chance to make a move. If the morning newspapers bring an important report in your domain, no matter how long is a segment on the television news bulletin next week, it cannot make up for the lost opportunity. It is very important to react quickly. If the main person of the organisation is not prepared to react quickly to the news and appear on television, stay relentless and find somebody who will be. It is good to have several "adept speakers", who you can have as a reserve option in such a situation. It is always desirable to be proactive, and reactive in the least possible manner. The reactive work includes planning a scenario, for which you would rather it never happens. If there is anything in your organisation which could lead to negative publicity, prepare for such a situation. Prepare a strategy and arrange it with relevant people. It is equally important to make sure you have a system with which to hide the negativities, which may lie in the distant parts of the organisation. Take care to make sure who informs the journalists, who in the organisation is responsible for establishing the real truth and who directs the activities. If there is time, make sure that a suitable individual is trained to work with the media. If not, then train the person yourself. Write the action plan and prepare the documentation. And above all, whatever you might have done, tell the truth, or the journalists will come back and harass you. If you are creating an integral communication strategy, leave some space for flexibility. The environment of a problem which you are dealing with is changing constantly. Almost all of these changes are out of your control. For example, in some issues the focus shifts from one participant to another. If are you still concentrated on the role of the first participant, you will not seize the moment or the attention of the media. If you are already involved in the public relations activities, then you know that the journalists monitor the trends at the speed of light and shift to the following issue in a matter of seconds. Accordingly, adjust your plans, and at the same time try to hold on to the main subject and the attitudes of your organisation.

How to create messages about oneself and one's activity?

An issue that often comes up is where to start when creating quality public relations. The right answer is - it is necessary to create and to coordinate one's own identity, and when we known who we are, what we are and what we want, then is the time to start quality communication with others. Every individual, company or organisation which wants to succeed or gain public attention must become a recognizable entity in the market and in public, i.e. build a good image. The first step in this attempt is to become renowned and to differentiate from the others by one's activities and behaviour. In order to accomplish this, different promotional techniques and methods can be used. However, they all come down to efficient communication and conveying messages about oneself and one's activity well, regardless whether it is an advertisement, a newspaper article, a catalogue, a press release, an interview or some other communication tool. Thus, the entire effect of public relations depends significantly on creating and conveying the message well. At the same time, that is also the essence of successful communication using written or pronounced words, sounds, symbols, pictures, logotypes... If we wish to realise successful public relations, special attention must be paid precisely to the quality of a message, communication channels and the way we "treat" the public for which the message is intended. Although a message is based upon a previously formed strategy and a public relations program, their realisation and success depends precisely on the message and on the relationship with the public, which either accepts it or not. And that, on the other hand, depends on whether the message is prepared and conveyed well, i.e. on whether there is an interest or some other circumstance that would enable the message to be accepted and become a reality in public. Public relations experts create messages and shape them for the mass media or other forms of communication. The public is exposed to these messages in different ways - from media to street talk. After a message has been wide spread, the public receives it, perceives it, remembers it or forgets it. Depending on personal world views, the public may not simply receive the message, but also perceive it as unquestionable, i.e. believe in it. Furthermore, that can lead to changes of attitude towards an issue or to behavioural changes. A larger level of efficiency of a message leads to permanent changes in receivers' behaviour or habits, changes which are in accordance with the message content. That in fact could be the desirable scenario of public relations and promotional communication. According to that, the well-known AIDA model was developed: Attention - Interest - Desire - Action. From the public relations experts to the advertisers, they all aspire to the realisation of this model - that want their message to produce the attention and interest in the receivers, to stir the desire within them and instigate them to action!

Which can arouse the interest of the media and the public?

Since a message has such strength, whenever we want to inform the public of something, we must ask ourselves - does our information have "weight", is our message shaped well enough to arouse attention and will it achieve the communication effects? In order to be able to answer these questions positively, we must take care of a few relevant factors; first of all, we must view the entire situation from the perspective of the interest of the public for which a message was intended. We must have in mind their desires, needs, style, way of life, occupation... Precisely because of that, it is often necessary to avoid communication which suits only highly educated people, since their way of communication often differs from the way that the lesser educated communicate. On the other side, in order to get the simplicity and clarity while shaping the message, we must avoid the jargon, complicated and technical terms, printing blocks, euphemisms etc. However, even when a message is carefully linguistically shaped, it can happen that, because of different barriers, the receivers modify it, misunderstand it or completely ignore it. In fact, each person can interpret a message from the perspective of his/her own network of social structure and personal opinions. Messages can also be damaged during the transfer through different communication channels. In any case, a message must give the public a feeling of involvement in the communication process, i.e. in what is happening. The best way to attract the attention of the public is to draw it in an event or a story, to make it responsible, a co-creator or a beneficiary. In a message, we must appeal to the interest of public. People are most interest in that which satisfies or supplements their emotional and physical needs. Public organisations often want to convey relevant facts regarding their operation, in doing so not distinguishing what is important for the audience and what for their leadership. What an organisation does and the message it sends out in order to become renowned and interesting to the public very frequently has to grow out of the organizational framework and become a story, i.e. a part of people's everyday life, something that will be discussed on the streets, in the café or the tram... This means that the messages must be clear, simplified and adjusted to the receivers, i.e. they must fit into the communication channels used by the people we want to reach. To check whether you have a good message, you can ask yourself the following questions: is the message suitable for the sender and the receivers, is the message significant, is it memorable, is it understandable, is it believable... People like information which they can talk about, which they can analyze, compare and convey. Communication which sees people as "targets", to which something is told, which are informed or made known of something, creates the defensive emotions in the receiver. The trend of localization is also in keeping with the efficient placing of the message, i.e. the process in which message is brought closer to people and their local environment or milieu. Acting in accordance with that, even the multinational corporations are recently taking domestic public relations agencies for their partners in the local environment, at the expense of multinational corporations, which have often controlled placing the message by the Copy - Paste principle, not taking the local differences and desires into account. In order for a message content to be meaningful and a message more acceptable, and to achieve great effects, it is desirable for the message to contain the elements of drama, which attracts the attention of the public; that it uses statistics well; it is desirable to refer to research and use its results; to include the public support of famous individuals or institutions and to use emotional appeals moderately.

How to choose the communication channels?

In order to realize a good conveyance of a message to a receiver, it is necessary to use as large number of different media as possible, not just one or two. The message influence is much stronger if it comes to the receiver in different ways, i.e. from different sides. For example, an information is much more efficient if its receiver hears it simultaneously on television and reads it in newspaper, and then talks about it with friends and additionally expands his/her knowledge by searching the Internet. If the objective is to enable good message conveyance, regardless of what it is about- the announcement of a new campaign, the presentation of the latest research results or the changes of organisation head - the effect will be stronger if the public presence has been maintained continuously. It is important that the organisation is continuously near and accessible, that it is spoken of. It is desirable that such aspects of communication exist on all levels of the public, although it is surely most important to insist on the audience which we are focused on, for example, the users of our services. It is extremely important to be proactive. In other words, it is considerably more efficient if you place the information first, than if the audiences requests the information and brings its own conclusions. If you inform the public in due time and with quality and provide it with interesting messages you have the advantage, because you give the audience the view on the facts from your point of view and at the time which is acceptable to you. That often goes for relations with media too, as they are the most important audience. In the process, we must take care not to overdo it with self promotion. It is advisable to be noticed, but it is still more important to give the public verified and true facts. This is the way to achieve and maintain credibility, and it is precisely the credibility of the source that is one of the basic preconditions of successful communication. Communication theorists have discovered long ago that the communication between individuals, groups and organisations is a complex process which includes numerous factors - the credibility of the source, the context of a message, symbols, abbreviations and slogans... In this matter, the special attention was put on the credibility of the source. Namely, it is not the same if a message comes from a respectable corporation, or from an organisation which does not have good public relations. A message is believed in more if it comes from a credible source. On the other hand, we have to wonder whether the audience perceives the person placing the message by the way of media as a familiar individual, as an individual who can be trusted, as an expert or as a person who has been paid to promote... Credibility of the person sending the message is the main reason that the companies hire respectable experts as their representatives, to represent them in public or to represent their products and services. Credibility can be based upon three factors - competence, sincerity or charisma. The context of a message is significant, because it is believed that actions speak louder then words. An organisation can spend an enormous amount of money on its promotion, which aims to prove the organization's commitment to society, but the effort is useless if, as little as one, embezzlement of money takes place. At the same time, it is important to determine the right time for placing a message, and that depends on what is happening in public, other "hot topics", etc. The correct distribution of a good quality message at the right moment and in the proper context contributes to the success of the message.

------PLANNING OF A PUBLIC RELATIONS CAMPAIGN (according to Olly Grader)

What do you want to do?

Would you like to create publicity for some event, to change the view on a controversial issue or simply increase the level of information about the work of an organisation? Ask yourselves if perhaps you want to gather funds or convince the government and local authorities to take a stand on an issue. All of that can be achieved by way of a good public relations campaign. However, do not set too many objectives and try to be realistic in your expectations.

Determine the target audience and the desired results

Objectives always begin with the audience which you wish to reach. It is important to avoid general terms, such as the general public, as often as possible. If you have to use this category, determine your audience closely. This could be your donors, users, members, politicians or the makers of public opinion. When determining the target audience, you must determine the means which to use in your relations with it.

Determine your human and financial resources

Public relations can represent a substantial cost. Or you can use all the people which you have at your disposal as resources. If the work of the organisation is going to require advertising costs in the future, start including that immediately in the yearly budget. Do not allow yourself to get in a situation where you must cut costs of supplying services at the expense of advertising.

Determine the best means - also in connection to the results

Having determined the key audience, determine the method which you are going to use to reach it. You can do that by means of an annual statement, an open letter, a conference, a presentation, and you can also do it by means of a promotional campaign.

Positioning of an organisation

Decide as to the way you want the others to perceive your organisation. If possible, try to reach a consensus in the organisation on this matter. Would you like to be regarded as radical and firm? Would you like to be perceived as an astute organisation whose work is based on research? A useful exercise is to make everyone in the organisation write a scornful introductory "newspaper" article about the way they perceive the organisation. Writing of such comments can often give you a notion in which way to position the organisation or develop the public relations campaign. Whatever you do, do not tell a story about the organisation if it is not sustainable.

Have a strategy close at hand

When you have replied to some of the mentioned questions, write a strategy for a media event or a public relations campaign. You may need a piece of information on the politics or the domain which your organisation deals with. If you want to have any of the mentioned information, first try to determine a clear strategy within your organisation.

Do not forget the basics

In the world of charitable activities the big objectives can often cast a shadow on the methods. Do not forget the basics. If somebody is not prepared to send mail, connect by phone, fax information, deal with the usual activities, then the whole labour of planning will be worth nothing. Not even the most perfect strategy can be prosperous if somebody does not write a first-rate announcement which will be worth publishing.

Set attainable objectives

The people who work in a charitable activity often want to change the world overnight. A part of your role as the person responsible for public relations is to set attainable objectives. Frequently, great amounts of money get spent on video clips, while the radio advertisements are cheaper and can be aired on the majority of the local radio stations.

At the beginning - evaluation plan

Find a method of evaluating the response of the aimed audience. That can be done by a quantitative public opinion survey and by monitoring the changes in the opinion among the aimed audience. Monitoring the media is another method of measuring successes, however, do make sure that the measuring stays in the suitable proportion in relation to the main work. The objectives in the media need to be set distinctly. If you want the number of a help phone line in the title, that is a clear objective. This is an important element of testing the efficiency of your work, and also an opportunity that enables you to assure those who assign funds to you that they are getting appropriate counter value for their money.

The alphabet of successful communication

How to carefully develop and successfully implement a communication campaign

A communication strategy should answer the following questions: what are our objectives, who is our target audience, which messages we want to convey, which mechanisms we will use to get the message to a recipient and how we will measure the efficiency of communication.

Mirela Holy, Ph.D., e-mail: [email protected]

Communication always has to be planned strategically, i.e. prudently. Campaigns, as complex communication projects, must always be realised in the same way as communication strategies, as the most complex public relations projects. A characteristic of the globalised world is that today everybody, and not just the business entities, accepts the necessity of strategic communication planning as a common practice, and therefore the nongovernmental, non-profit organizations and state or public administration institutions also strategically plan their actions. The strategic communication planning is important for successful realisation of a project, efficient and effective operation, systematic building of a positive image in public, the realisation of the desired position in public and creating strategic partnerships.

The elements of strategic communication planning

At the beginning of a campaign it is essential to define the objectives that the campaign aims to achieve, which is followed by researching the market and the position of the communication subject, public opinion research and polling the target groups, and designing the communication strategy. The strategic planning is also relevant for small and simple projects, and not only for complex communication projects. In other words, if the subject which is positioning itself in public has no developed strategy, which includes good knowledge of its own organisation and potentials, social environment, opponents, external public, objectives, target groups, operation and growth methods and actions, resources, deadlines, with a carefully planned exit strategy in case of unplanned circumstances, one can hardly expects that such subject will communicate successfully, regardless of the quality of the product or services which it offers. This means that strategic planning has to be applied even when realising the smaller, tactical projects, like the organisation of a press conference, releasing a statement etc. In other words, one always needs to keep in mind the broader context and the way in which a smaller tactical project fits into the strategic orientation of the subject. Each campaign is communication, and as such it inevitably must have a logical beginning and ending. Considering the fact that the key elements of every communication are a message sender, a message receiver, a message and a communication channel, during the planning of a campaign every segment of each factor of communication must be thought of. The creation of a communication strategy is a process which begins by defining a so- called understandable statement, which positions an organisation in a simple manner that everybody understands, followed by working out the methods of positioning the organisation in public, consistent to that strategic point of reference, developing tactics, defining messages and evaluation methods, i.e. measuring the effects of the communication strategy. Defining the momentary situation on the basis of research and analyses, planning and programming, implementation and communication and the evaluation of the effect of a strategy, i.e. evaluation and review, are the four phases of each well managed campaign. A communication strategy should answer the following questions: what are our objectives, what our target audience is, which messages we want to convey are, which mechanisms we will use to get a message to a receiver and how we will measure the efficiency of communication.

Defining the current situation - research and analyses Research is an extraordinary important part of the process of communication strategy creation, due to the fact that the realisation of the strategy itself depends on the quality of research, the quality of the analyses of collected data and defining the exact communication problem. A good strategy or campaign is necessarily based on an excellent knowledge of the internal and the external environment of the organisation. Besides the quality analysis of media announcements, materials of the organisation and available information on the main opponents, it is also advisable to carry out a public opinion research. For the purpose of public opinion research one can use questionnaires, on-site testing with one-on-one interviews, telephone opinion polls, focus groups, Internet groups, non-formal forms of research, analysis of the Internet contents etc. After collecting the research results and relevant information, next in line is the analysis of the obtained data. The most frequently applied analysis are SWOT (strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, threats) and PEST (political, economic, sociological or social and technological environment of an organisation). The SWOT analysis is called for in situations where there is a lot of generally known data, but the focus of the problem or the opportunity is limited. The weaknesses and threats have to be examined carefully, because it is important to neutralize them.

Planning and programming Following quality analysis is synthesis. The first step in this phase is determining the communication objectives. In the course of defining the communication objectives, we are also defining the target audiences, messages, communication channels and the mechanisms for realising a two-way communication with the target audience. When determining the communication objectives we must keep in mind that they have to be realistic. According to Anne Gregory, the objectives are set on one of three levels:

1. familiarity of the public with the message 2. stimulating the public to form attitudes or opinions 3. stimulating certain behaviour of the target audience.

In accordance with the mentioned, the objectives of an organisation can be stimulating of familiarising, promotion of understanding, overcoming incomprehension and indifference, keeping informed, generating knowledge, changing prejudices, stimulating beliefs, establishing or changing the perception and also acting in a certain direction. When programming a message, we must consider the form, tone, context, the time of distribution of the message and its repetition. After syntheses, the obtained findings need to be formulated in a document, which most often contains the history and the background on the bases of the collected data and the analyses of the data, the internal factors, the external factors and the communication review plan. In a strategy it is essential to specify the exact and precise deadlines of implementation of a particular campaign phase, which is mostly realised in a form of the so called media plan.

Implementation and communication A communication strategy is an overall approach to a program or a campaign, the coordinating element, the leading principle, the main idea, the main tactical principle of an individual program. The strategy is implemented with the help of tactical projects, which must be in harmony with the strategic goal. The tactical communication projects, using which a campaign is realised, are media releases, press conferences, stimulating the interest of journalists, direct and indirect communication with journalists, various social events, interviews, product presentations, prize games, advertising, sponsorships, fairs, crisis communication, establishment of partnerships, conferences, seminars, workshops, internal communication etc. It is important that every strategy is in accordance with the main idea of the strategy and that it is available or viable in relation to available resources. Resources are a critical element of a strategy. Specifically, within a strategy it is necessary to plan and program in great detail the budget for the realisation of overall strategy and particular tactical projects essential for implementation. The main campaign costs are related to human resources and operating costs (lease, advertising, development and realisation of the general campaign concept, promotional and public relations materials costs), and the equipment costs.

Evaluation of the effect - evaluation and review The efficiency of a strategy must be measured continuously. The continuous measuring of the project efficiency is an evaluation which usually consists of quantitative and qualitative analysis of media publishing and calculating the commercial value of media publishing using AVE method, testing the change of the public opinion as compared to the initial situation, and evaluating the final result of communication, i.e. realisation of the strategy objectives. Evaluation must be based on the pre-defined measurable objectives, system of quality control, evaluation criteria adjusted to those for evaluation of the success of the strategy, control procedures arranged beforehand and the presentation of results. A review is a close examination of the internal and external environment, and it is carried out after the completion of a communication project or campaign. If the review outcome shows that the strategy is not satisfactory, it is necessary to change the strategy. Conclusion For the development of a campaign, the availability and analysis of each important piece of information is very important and so is using the information when determining the campaign objectives. Although the objective may be complex, the message of a campaign must be simple, easy-to-remember and understandable for everyone. The campaign objective determines the target groups of the campaigns, i.e. whether the target audiences are internal, external or even parallel. The fact is that the communication towards parallel organisations is mostly used for the purpose of realising a partnerships or synergistic action for the realisation of joint objectives, however, in extraordinary cases the parallel organisations can also be the main target group of a campaign. The campaign message dissemination depends on the objective which we want to achieve in the campaign, but also on the budget available for the campaign implementation. The best indicator of campaign efficiency is the campaign result, i.e. the realisation of the set objective. A campaign usually has its initial period, or the pre-campaign period, during which the public relations activities are carried out to prepare the ground for the start of the campaign itself. In this initial period, it is possible to do interviews, in which experts warn about some problem which the campaign wants to emphasize, resolve, control or similar. In the initial period of the campaign it is possible to use the so called guerrilla strategies, the task of which is to stimulate the public interest for what is behind such activities. At the very beginning of a campaign, it is good to organise a press conference where the campaign is presented to the general public or target audience, and the objectives and main messages of the campaign are stated. What follows is the period of campaign realisation, in which the marketing activities and advertising must be well coordinated with the public relations activities - interviews and statements of the organisation's key people, organisation of social events, media releases and arranged articles and programmes, conferences, exhibitions and similar content. If a campaign carries on for a longer period of time, it is necessary to perform the continuous evaluation of the campaign. At the end of the campaign period, it is again recommendable to organise a press conference, where the campaign results are presented, the realized objectives pointed out, or the continuation of activities until the realisation of the specified objective is announced. Only after that comes the review of the campaign effect or, using the colloquial phrase, balance sheet.

And finally, there is one thing without which no campaign can exist- ensured funding sources. The non-governmental associations are often faced with the problem of financing the well planned and socially beneficial campaigns. Although associations often submit their communication projects to the government administration bodies or foreign donors, a relatively small portion of associations successfully realises the projects. Nevertheless, the first and basic step, which every association must overcome before even submitting a project, is a professionally and well developed and written project. I believe that following the demonstrated campaign structure can be of great help to associations in that sense.

GUERRILLA COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES

Using shock-therapy to get the public attention

The first subversive strategies for attracting public attention in campaigning were used by the members of the suffragette movement, but their methods were quite aggressive and radical: the favourite method of British suffragettes was chaining themselves to the gates of the parliament building.

Mirela Holy, Ph. D. E-mail: [email protected]

Jay Conrad Levinson - the father of guerrilla communication strategies

Today there is a lot of talk about the so-called guerrilla strategies used in the implementation of communication campaigns. However, little is known about guerrilla strategies or, rather, subversive communication actions. The contemporary culture considers Jay Conrad Levinson to be the father of guerrilla communication strategies, primarily in the sense of advertisings, i.e. managing marketing campaigns. Nevertheless, guerrilla strategies are considerably older than his book, Guerrilla Marketing, which was published in Croatian translation in 1999. That is, the first subversive strategies for attracting public attentions while carrying out their campaigns were used by the members of the suffragette movement. Suffragette methods were considerably more aggressive and more radical than those used in campaigns of other movements. Some theoreticians find their selection of methods in the ways of participants of the French revolution. According to Wendy Perkins, the suffragettes made a revolutionary turn as compared to the earlier campaigns: "Although the campaign for the female right to vote preceded the suffragette campaign, the suffragettes, I believe, are the ones who offered an ingenious solution to this problem: they reshaped political activity so that it would be based on performance instead of on law. The suffragettes did not only operate as citizens, they also conducted civil status [.] In their rhetoric, the suffragettes articulated their knowledge of citizenship forms and rights, while at the same time their activism was undermining civil discourse: by demanding the rights of the modern democratic citizenship, they decided to take creative, dangerous or illegal measures in order to achieve them" (Treća, No. 1-2, Vol. III, 2001, 17). Some of the favourite methods of British suffragettes were chaining to gates of parliament buildings, protest marches, attractive performances, etc. The fact is that the most influential associations of today (PETA, Greenpeace) in their campaigns largely use those guerrilla strategies which irresistibly remind us of the practices inaugurated by 'civilly disobedient' suffragettes more than a hundred years ago.

Shortage of money "condemns" NGOs to use guerrilla strategies

The word guerrilla originates from Spanish language (guerill) and literally means a small war. Historically, the term guerill refers to the "small war" of the Spaniards against Napoleon Bonaparte 1808-1814. The famous Argentinean revolutionist Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, better known as Che Guevara, writes in his book Guerrilla warfare (1960) about guerrilla strategies and says that these strategies are meant to ensure the victory over the enemy "by using surprise effect and tactical flexibility". During 1960s, guerrilla strategies spread from the military discourse to the area of business, because smaller companies recognized guerrilla strategies as efficient weapons in the struggle with multinational companies and large business groups. At that time, business guerrilla strategies carried negative connotations, that is, they were considered destructive. This point of view remained until the mid 1980s, when Jay Conrad Levinson published the Guerrilla Marketing. Guerrilla marketing has only one goal: attracting as much public attention as possible by using very little money; warning the public about some product or service by undertaking original, unusual actions which always have a 'hook'. Considering that the associations chronically 'suffer' from the shortage of money, it could be said that they are, in a way, condemned to using guerrilla strategies in their campaigns if they want to arouse public attention. This implies careful planning and creative brain storming. It is important to keep in mind the goal which guerrilla method intends to achieve, because shocking guerrilla strategy behind which there is no coherent message can cause the effect contrary to the one hoped for.

Internet is highly suitable for guerrilla campaigns

When we talk about guerrilla communication strategies of today, it is impossible not to mention the Internet, which became a medium greatly usable in guerrilla campaigns. That is, information that has been published on the Internet quickly and easily spreads by electronic mail and ensures large dispersion of a message. The basic precondition for this is interesting and witty message or content. Internet guerrilla strategies have become frequent on Croatian web, too, and there are probably no e-mail receivers in Croatia who have not seen subversive contents which ridicule the campaign of one of Croatian telecommunication companies, or the messages which mock the posters of most political parties. Unfortunately, the one thing which characterizes Croatian guerrilla strategies is still a negative context of a campaign or activity, witty criticism of certain social phenomena, but without offering alternative contents. That is the characteristic of an undeveloped guerrilla culture. It is in this segment that non-governmental associations can have crucial role and raise the standards of guerrilla marketing in Croatia through realisation of positive guerrilla campaigns.

35 years of Greenpeace guerilla campaign

Greenpeace has developed its own methodology for carrying out non-violent actions which are attractive to the media, and which serve as public warning about environmental problems

Besides the conventional methods, such as lobbying in political circles, participation at international conferences etc., which are used by many environmental protection organizations, Greenpeace has further defined the methodology of joining the non-violent direct actions, by which it publicly warns about environmental problems and at the same time incites huge media interest.

Author: Sanja Čavec-Kavicki

An international non-profit organization, Greenpeace has for the past 35 years been carrying out numerous campaigns of non-violent creative opposition by effectively focusing the public attention to global environmental problems, offering solutions for peaceful and green future of the planet Earth. With campaigns to stop nuclear testing in the atmosphere and underground, to stop whaling in world seas and with declaration on making Antarctica the global park, Greenpeace gained the leading global position in turning public attention to environmental threats.

On the principles of political independence, non-violence and internationalism, Greenpeace organizes numerous activities, among which are campaigns for protection of oceans and centennial rainforests, putting an end to the use of fossil fuels and promotion of renewable energy for the purpose of stopping climatic changes, as well as campaigns for elimination of toxic chemicals, prevention of releasing genetically modified organisms into nature, end of nuclear threats and nuclear pollution and for safe, reasonable and sustainable trade.

With these and numerous other actions Greenpeace tries to ensure the ability of Earth to preserve life in all its diversity.

Creative, non-violent, direct actions

Besides the conventional methods, such as lobbying in political circles, participation at international conferences etc., which are used by many environmental protection organizations, Greenpeace has further defined the methodology of joining the non-violent direct actions, by which it publicly warns about environmental problems and at the same time incites huge media interest.

Greenpeace has been carrying out actions against environmental degradation since 1971, when a small boat with volunteers and journalists sailed out for Amchitka, the region north of Alaska in which the US government was performing underground nuclear tests. The tradition of a non-violent public witness continues today, whether in the form of activists on rubber boats positioning themselves between the whaler's harpoon and the whale, or the alpinists placing huge posters across central buildings in big cities of the world, astounding the irresponsible corporations. They were surrounding nuclear facilities dressed as containers labelled for radioactive waste. In all these cases the media watched their actions with great interest, and the number of their followers enormously increased. It is estimated that today the organization counts about three million activists and a network of offices in 45 countries of the world, which actively cooperate with Greenpeace International headquarters in Amsterdam. They are financed by voluntary donations of individual supporters and by the funds obtained from various foundations. They emphasize that they do not seek nor accept contributions from governments, corporations or political parties, which could compromise the independence, objectivity and integrity of Greenpeace.

According to official data published in the Annual Financial Statement, the total income of Greenpeace in 2004 amounted to 158.5 million euros.

Climate change - priority task

Greenpeace is currently investing large efforts in Stop Climate Change campaign in order to put an end to global warming and to preserve biodiversity, promoting the use of renewable energy sources as a solution. A few years ago they realized that climate change has a potential to wipe out the majority of improvements which nature preservation movements have achieved in other fields of activity.

They emphasize that damages inflicted on ecosystem can harm everything, from minke whales to coral shelves and polar bears. If efficient worldwide actions are not undertaken, entire forests would be lost and hundreds of thousands of species would disappear. Climate change will also bring devastation to people and their communities, especially to those who are poor. For this reason, it represents the priority task which Greenpeace is dealing with.

Presenting and making people aware of the reality caused by climate change and the importance of struggle against it is also inevitable part of their job. They emphasize that naming the guilty, protesting against the corporations, singling out and compromising the governments will help to make the solution for climatic change problems become reality.

Greenpeace invites everyone to offer their personal contribution to the revolution of energy use in order to make the mankind leave the world dependent on nuclear and fossil fuels and enter the world which uses renewable energy sources, whose efficient usability and new environmentally friendly technology already exists.

Greenpeace expeditions document the effects of climate changes to people and ecosystems. Their professional negotiators, scientist and other experts participate in world conferences on climate change and try to persuade the decision-makers to undertake necessary actions. Their volunteers and cyber-activists make constant pressures on law enforcers and corporations. Greenpeace activists are putting their safety and freedom at risk even for the smallest possibility to change the world. Fortunately, Greenpeace is only one of many members of a much larger movement which promotes the use of renewable energy. We are lucky to be working alongside many other environment preservation organizations and many companies, governments and individuals who share our determination, optimism and faith that there is a solution for every problem. Greenpeace members emphasize that the time has come to put an end to the dependence on fossil fuels and other environmentally harmful technologies.

Greenpeace victories in 2006

Like a certain "conscience" when it comes to ecology, the organisation has directly helped in realization of numerous changes beneficial for the environment and life, and for this reason at least some of the events in which their activity is of crucial value should be mentioned.

• After months of pressure, consumer actions, online activities and more than a hundred thousand electronic messages from ocean defenders from the whole world, the seafood suppliers Gorton's, Sealord and the parent company Nissui have withdrawn their active support to the Japanese whalers in April this year. Whalers have announced that 32% share these companies had in whaling operations is to be transferred to a "public interest entity". The withdrawal cuts off whalers economically, which directly prevents the plans of expansion to new markets and whale products.

• In March, electronics giant Hewlett Packard confirmed a plan to stop using numerous dangerous chemicals in its products.

• In February French president Chirac announced a dramatic recall of the asbestos-laden warship Clemenceau. Greenpeace reported that their actions, emails to the president and an international scandal left France with little choice but to abandon the attempt to dump its toxic waste in India.

• A part of the Amazon, twice the size of Belgium, has been given additional protection in February after a Presidential decree, which specifies 1.6 million hectares to be permanently protected and completely off limits to logging and deforestation. The decree by President Lula of Brazil to create the 6.4 million hectare conservation area is a great victory for the people of the Amazon who are battling land-grabbers, ranchers and wood industry.

• One of the world's treasures, the Great Bear Rainforest, was saved from destruction on 7th February, after a ten-year-long difficult and dangerous work.

Thousands of activists from around the world took part in all these events, some by sending e-mails, some by standing on the blockades, and some by voting against destruction with their financial contribution. Some Greenpeace activists were beaten, sued and arrested. Nevertheless, they are satisfied because common sense finally prevailed.

At the end of November last year, Swiss voters were determining in a referendum whether genetically engineered crops and organisms could be grown in Switzerland during the next five years. Their verdict in each and every one of the three main languages used in Switzerland was no (nein, non, no).

The importance of Greenpeace and similar organisations

The importance of Greenpeace and similar organisations continues to be proven in the areas of fastest growing, galloping world economies, such as China and India, said Gerd Leopold, the Executive Director of Greenpeace International. However, as he pointed out, the developed world must not stop and rest on its laurels. Governments and industry must not be driven by profits and politics, but by a genuine interest in the future of the planet.

The realisation of the programmes also depends on financial contributions and supporters. In 2005, the Annual Statement demonstrated an income increase in twenty-one of twenty seven national and regional offices world-wide. Only offices in Brazil, Central and Eastern Europe, Luxembourg, Netherlands and Switzerland showed a decline in income. Worldwide, the organisation showed less than 1% decrease in its income and 4.9% in the number of supporters.

An office has not yet been established in Croatia, but the first bigger action was organised at the end of July 2005 in Osijek and Vukovar, as a part of the European Energy Revolution Scenario. On this occasion, a century old sailing ship Anna sailed down the Danube presenting an educative exhibition on climate change and advantages of renewable energy sources.

The civil society glossary PUBLIC ADVOCATING

"All of us have power - the ability to influence, change the life of people around us. But before we all start to use our power in public, the public will be governed by those who are motivated by their wish to control others and not by those who want to use their power only as a means of achieving public good." (Marilyn French, American feminist literary critic)

Written by: Mrs. Sanja Sarnavka, Women's Human Rights Group - B.a.b.e.

Concept of public advocating or advocacy

The English concept advocacy is translated by the syntagm public advocating. Probably, it has been officially used for the first time in the publication Public Advocating - women engaged for social changes in countries successors of former Yugoslavia (published by Star Project-Delphi International, Zagreb 1998), accompanied by an explanation and comment by Vesna Kesić, who in her introductory text entitled Troubles with Words interprets how and why this syntagm became customary instead of taking-over the word advocacy, which exists and is well known in Croatian. In the English language there are numerous definitions of the activities which are named advocacy, almost as many as the number of organisations which claim to work with public advocacy. In this way, for example, on the web page www.wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn it says that advocacy is "active support of an idea or a problem, a distinctive act of demanding or requesting something", while Wikipedia's web pages explain public advocacy as an "umbrella term for organized activism related to a particular set of issues". For creators of www.canadacouncil.ca/help this is "a campaign that an individual or organization undertakes to promote any measure that would broadly benefit society".

The Institute for Public Advocacy founded in America in 1985

The Advocacy Institute was founded in America in 1985, it provided the first texts and explanations of how and when we need to resort to public advocacy. Today their web pages say that "remaining grounded in core values, we try to achieve a just society in which there will be justice for those who have been denied justice, economic equality for those denied sustenance and opportunity, public health and security for those at preventable risk and access to political power for those who have been denied an equal voice in the policy- making process".

From the above it is possible to infer that with public advocacy we always want to intervene into reality by introducing some changes, specially in favour of those who have no power, or have limited power. Issues, with which public advocacy is able to deal with, are very diverse: starting from giving support to the right to live without violence for women and children, or the right for the handicapped to remove barriers which obstruct an integration into society on an equal basis, up to the right to have bikeways in large cities. It is essential, onto which the Croatian language concept refers, that the activity takes place in the public sphere, and not behind-the-scenes, and that, in order to bring change, it is always a wider support of the different social groups and citizens required in order to force the decision-makers to introduce positive changes for marginalised groups.

Fundamental principles of public advocacy

Individuals or organisations which deal with public advocacy need to know some fundamental principles and regularities of this type of activity. As advised by the experts, before entering the public scene with certain requirements, it is necessary to ask oneself a few basic questions: what does he/she want to achieve by the advocacy, who is the target of the activity (who can bring about change), which message do we want the public to hear, who will transfer the message to the public and how. In order to be successful in public advocacy, it is necessary to precisely know the following: - structure - the decision-making process, i.e. the distribution of power and responsibility (who creates laws, and who implements them) - jurisdiction - who is and on which level responsible for what (for example, the issues are solved at the local or at the national level) - the network of relations - who cooperates with whom (formally and informally) - power - who has the power to articulate the problem loudly in public, who will hear and listen - limitations - how far can one go with his/her requests (what can be carried out in certain circumstances, and what not).

How to carry out a public advocacy campaign

Public advocacy, in the widest sense of the word, means any representation of some idea before others, but it is in the most cases implemented through campaigns in order to bring about changes of legislative regulations or the relation between society and certain issues. Campaigns need to be planned very precisely and cautiously. After selection of an aim, which always needs to be realistic, i.e. accessible, the campaign needs to be prepared thoroughly, with a precisely defined duration. In order to speak in public about some issue with assurance and to be able to represent the interests of a discriminated group, it is necessary to undertake serious preparations. The data are to be collected by research and which substantially support the requirements: statistics, international standards, case studies which will be submitted to the public and decision-makers. Before starting a campaign we must define what do we exactly want to achieve and which solutions to problems we suggest in consistency with the context that has been previously thoroughly studied. It is always important to precisely determine the target groups to which the campaign will be addressed to - some of the messages may be directed to the target groups whose support we want to obtain and some to the decision-makers. For each selected target group, specific messages and channels, through which they will be transmitted, need to be formed (stickers, posters, TV ads, radio ads, street and similar). For example, in campaigns against violence against women, the messages were addressed to women: Who beats you, does not love you!; to witnesses: React now, violence against women is a crime! and to men: Man's NO TO VIOLENCE against women!

Successful campaigns are in most cases carried out in coalitions

Successful campaigns of public advocacy in most cases are achieved in coalitions with individuals and groups with which otherwise we do not cooperate closely, but they may support our requirements partially (for example, the Association for Promotion of Inclusion can invite, as supporters, organisations which need to protect human rights of every individual, but in their everyday activity they do not deal with inclusion with due care).

After defining goals, research, creation of coalitions and formations of messages for predetermined target groups, it is necessary to make a precise action plan, i.e. an activity flow chart: what, when and why need to be correctly determined. Although sometimes by improvisation we can obtain very creative and ingenious solutions, for a serious public advocacy campaign it is exceptionally important that a proper and a thorough preparation is made. The experts often say that it is better not to organise a campaign if there is no time for precise planning, because unproductive and inefficient public advocacy may sometimes put back the problem, instead of solving it. Very often, due to persistence and strong power of decision-makers, apparently very successful campaigns may not succeed to achieve the appointed goals. In our country, with political parties unaccustomed to responsibility, it is an especially frequent case.

At the end of each action of public advocacy, it is important (and necessary) to carry out an evaluation and estimate of what has been done successfully, and where mistakes were made, which activities have been effective, and which were not, in order to be more successful in new attempts to bring about change.

All of us have the power of public influence Finally, as an incentive for future activities of public advocacy, we are taking-over a quotation cited in the pioneer publication on public advocacy called Star Project/Delphi International: "All of us have power - the ability to influence, change the life of people around us. But before we all start to use our power in public, the public will be governed by those who are motivated by their wish to control others and not by those who want to use their power only as a means of achieving public good." (Marilyn French, American feminist literary critic).

Let us represent some useful Web sites www.huoj.hr - the portal of Professional Association for Public Relations

Boris Hajoš, M.Sc., Secretary of the Croatian Public Relations Association

The Web portal of HUOJ (Croatian Public Relations Associations), www.huoj.hr, was launched in the beginning of 2004 with the purpose of building a modern and dynamic web portal for enabling the quality presentation of the Association's work, as well as the profession itself to the public, but also to enable the quality communication among members of the Association. Therefore, this portal has a twofold function - it serves not only as a classic web site but also as an Intranet for Associations' articles which tries to facilitate the approach to useful and necessary information in everyday work.

A classic organization of sections was used in the web site design according to the origin, structure and activities of the Association, and the news and announcements of the Association's activities and its articles. More information about the Association and its members can be found in sections about the Association, membership information, and there is also a monthly E-newsletter dedicated to news and articles of the Association.

Special sections provide information on annual PR conferences, which is also the Association's oldest activity - the conferences are being organized since 2000. They make an exceptional opportunity for receiving information on emerging trends in the professional field since the lecturers are respectable foreign and native experts, as well as for meeting and sharing experience with other members.

In the publishing section there are notices of translations which the Association publishes in its professional library - PRint, and the information on issues and reviews of expert books of other publishers. We would especially like to point out to the recording of an exceptionally interesting lecture of the respectable British professor Anne Gregory on the organization of public relations in the most respectable British companies and communications of the UK Government which the author held at the promotion of the Croatian edition of her book "Public Relations: Campaign Planning and Management", in April this year (2006).

A special unit is dedicated to students, whom the Association wants to help in finding and doing professional practical work in PR agencies, or in communications departments in the companies or institutions of its members. The PR agencies section contains an address book with contacts also reference data on Croatian PR agencies, as well as a minimal agency price list of the HUOJ Agencies Section and regulations for competition for the selection of PR agencies. This can be very helpful to companies or institutions which consider engaging the agencies in particular projects. The education section provides the program of the HUOJ PR school - a series of lectures and workshops held and run by experienced colleagues, excellent public relations experts from eminent Croatian and foreign companies and PR agencies, by which the Association strives to provide opportunities for professional training to its members. The topics are determined on the basis of members' opinion polls on educational needs. A special, additional value of these workshops, besides the professional one, is the experience sharing and meeting and connecting with the members, which can help them in their routine work. For those who are especially interested in the development of the professional field there is a useful section on PR research which presents the results of the research on situation and development of the profession, which HUOJ performs every few years.

In addition, the members can also find useful the Job Fair section which, in the cooperation with employers and employment web portals, publishes current job announcements for finding employment in the profession. All those who seek personnel can post an announcement free of charge and thus reach as quick and as easy as possible the potential interested individuals, while for those who search for a new job this is the best information source on new job posts. The web page also has a calendar with notices on significant happenings in the profession - conferences, seminars and courses on public relations in Croatia and wider region, and on the most important world and European expert congresses. As for the volume, the largest part of the site is dedicated to the news section which releases information on activities of members and their companies or PR activities of PR agencies' clients in order to keep the members informed about the new campaigns and the work of their colleagues.

If you need a professional advice or you are simply interested in public relations, just visit www.huoj.hr and you will certainly find something interesting or useful.

Anne Gregory, Campaign Planning and Management, Zagreb: HUOJ, 2006

Planning and managing campaigns can be fun!

Author: Ruža Beljan

Croatian Public Relations Association CPRA (HUOJ) publishes in the PRINT (PR INTernational) Library the translations of recent professional literature from the area of communications management. In May this year it published Campaign Planning and Management by Anne Gregory, the British expert in public relations.

The book is a result of the author's years-long experience in public relations, but also her experience as the Head of the School of Business Strategy and an assistant dean of the Faculty of Business at Leeds Metropolitan University.

One of the most common advice that you will hear from all public relations experts is that the public needs to be addressed in a simple and to the widest audience understandable language, whether we talk about verbal statements or written media releases. All those who write know how hard the writing can be. And the very first characteristic noticed about Anne Gregory's book is the simplicity of writing. The author's language is simple and fun, and sometimes she even uses colloquial expressions unusual in the literary language. By using an entertaining and simple style, she explains in nine chapters the alphabet of public communications and campaign planning and management. Getting a public relations campaign or programme off the ground can seem an overwhelming task. But Anne Gregory claims that, as with any project, the secret of success lies in good planning and effective management. This edition explains the entire process by describing how to initiate and manage the ongoing development of a programme in a structured way to benefit both the organization and its clients. Practical and easy to read, the book takes the form of a step-by-step guide, covering many vital areas including: . the public relations function within an organization . starting the planning process . research and analysis . setting objectives . the public and the message . strategy and tactics . timescales and resources . evaluation and review. Packed with numerous case studies, the book demonstrates a 10-point plan for ensuring successful campaigns and programmes.

By using the techniques presented here, public relations practitioners will be able to drive events instead of being driven by them. Endorsed by the Institute of Public Relations, Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns is vital reading for students, practitioners or managers who want a definitive guide to the planning and management process.

The Myth of CSR he notion that companies can ‘do well’ and ‘do good’ at the same time is problematic because in reality the markets do not function in that way

Deborah Doane

Stanford Social Innovation Review

Fall 2005

DEBORAH DOANE is an active campaigner, writer and researcher in the area of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and global sustainability. She is Chair of the CORE (Corporate Responsibility) Coalition of over 130 NGOs, organisations and individuals in the UK, campaigning for corporate reform stronger by encouraging them to focus on social and environmental responsibilities. She is a frequent lecturer on a range of CSR and humanitarian issues, including at the London School of Economics, London Business School and Harvard University. Moreover, she gave her contribution to The Guardian and The Independent, as well as to the Financial Times Handbook of Management.

The Myth of CSR

The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Movement has grown in recent years from a fringe activity by a few earnest companies, like The Body Shop, and Ben & Jerry’s, to a highly visible priority for traditional corporate leaders from Nike to McDonald’s. Reports of good corporate behavior are now commonplace in the media, from GlaxoSmithKline’s donation of antiretroviral medications to Africa, to Hewlett-Packard’s corporate volunteering programs, to Starbucks’ high-volume purchases of Fair Trade coffee. In fact, CSR has gained such prominence that the Economist devoted a special issue to denouncing it earlier this year. Although some see CSR as simply philanthropy by a different name, it can be defined broadly as the efforts corporations make above and beyond regulation to balance the needs of stakeholders with the need to make a profit. Though traces of modern-day CSR can be found in the social auditing movement of the 1970s, it has only recently acquired enough momentum to merit an Economist riposte. While U.S. and European drivers for CSR have differed slightly, key events, such as the sinking of Shell’s Brent Spar oil rig in the North Sea in 1996, and accusations of Nike and others’ use of “sweatshop labor,” triggered the first major response by big business to the uprisings against the corporate institution. Naomi Klein’s famous tome, “No Logo,” gave voice to a generation that felt that big business had taken over the world, to the detriment of people and the environment, even as that generation was successfully mobilizing attacks on corporate power following the Seattle anti-globalization riots in 1999. Rather than shrink away from the battle, corporations emerged brandishing CSR as the friendly face of capitalism, helped, in part, by the very movement that highlighted the problem of corporate power in the first place. NGOs, seeing little political will by governments to regulate corporate behavior, as free-market economics has become the dominant political mantra, realized that perhaps more momentum could be achieved by partnering with the enemy. By using market mechanisms via consumer power, they saw an opportunity to bring about more immediate change. So, organizations that address social standards in supply chains, such as the Fair Label Association in the United States or the United Kingdom’s ethical Trading Initiative, have flourished. The United Nations partnered with business to launch its own Global Compact, which offered nine principles relating to human rights and the environment, and was hailed as the ethical road map for the future. And while socially responsible investment had been popular in some circles for years, eventually the mainstream investment community cottoned onto CSR: In 1999, Dow Jones created the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes, closely followed by the FTSE4Good. All of these initiatives have been premised on the notion that companies can ‘do well’ and ‘do good’ at the same time – both saving the world and making a decent profit, too. The unprecedented growth of CSR may lead some to feel a sense of optimism about the power of market mechanisms to deliver social and environmental change. But markets often fail, especially when it comes to delivering public goods; therefore, we have to be concerned that CSR activities are subject to the same limitations of markets that prompted the movement in the first place. Making Markets Work? At face value, the market has indeed been a powerful force in bringing forward some measurable changes in corporate behavior. Most large companies now issue a voluntary social and environmental report alongside their regular annual financial report; meanwhile the amount of money being poured into socially responsible investing (SRI) funds has been growing at an exponential rate, year over year. Some socially linked brands, such as Fair Trade, are growing very quickly. Ethical consumerism in the United Kingdom was worth almost L25 billion in 2004, according to a report from the Co-operative Bank.

The Economist article argued that the only socially responsible thing a company should do is to make money – and that adopting CSR programs was misguided, at best. But there are some strong business incentives that have either pushed or pulled companies onto the CSR bandwagon. For example, companies confronted with boycott threats, as Nike was in the 1990s, or with the threat of high-profile lawsuits, as McDonald’s is over obesity concerns, may see CSR as a strategy for presenting a friendlier face to the public. Once launched, CSR initiatives may provoke changes in basic practices inside some companies. Nike is now considered by many to be the global leader when it comes to improving labor standards in developing-country factories. The company now leads the way in transparency, too. When faced with a lawsuit over accusations of sweatshop labor, Nike chose to face its critics head-on and this year published on its Web site a full list of its factories with their audited social reports. And Nike is not alone. A plethora of other brands have developed their own unique strategies to confront the activists, with varying degrees of success. But no one could reasonably argue that these types of changes add up to a wholesale change in capitalism as we know it, nor that they are likely to do so anytime soon. Market Failure One problem here is that CSR as a concept simplifies some rather complex arguments and fails to acknowledge that ultimately, trade-offs must be made between the financial health of the company and ethical outcomes. And when they are made, profit undoubtedly wins over principles. CSR strategies may work under certain conditions, but they are highly vulnerable to market failures, including such things as imperfect information, externalities, and free riders. Most importantly, there is often a wide chasm between what’s good for a company and what’s good for society as a whole. The reasons for this can be captured under what I’ll argue are the four key myths of CSR.

Myth #1: The market can deliver both short-term financial returns and long-term social benefits. One assumption behind CSR is that business outcomes and social objectives can become more or less aligned. The rarely expressed reasoning behind this assumption goes back to the basic assumptions of free-market capitalism: People are rational actors who are motivated to maximize their self-interest. Since wealth, stable societies, and healthy environments are all in individuals’ self-interest, individuals will ultimately invest, consume, and build companies in both profitable and socially responsible ways. In other words, the market will ultimately balance itself. Yet, there is little if any empirical evidence that the market behaves in this way. In fact, it would be difficult to prove that incentives like protecting natural assets, ensuring an educated labor force for the future, or making voluntary contributions to local community groups actually help companies improve their bottom line. While there are pockets of success stories where business drivers can be aligned with social objectives, such as Cisco’s Networking Academies, which are dedicated to developing a labor pool for the future, they only provide a patchwork approach to improving the public good. In any case, such investments are particularly unlikely to pay off in the two- to four-year time horizon that public companies, through demands of the stock market, often seem to require. As we all know, whenever a company issues a “profits warning,” the markets downgrade its share price. Consequently, investments in things like the environment or social causes become a luxury and are often placed on the sacrificial chopping block when the going gets rough. Meanwhile, we have seen an abject failure of companies to invest in things that may have a longer-term benefit, like health and safety systems. BP was fined a record $1.42 million for health and safety offenses in Alaska in 2004, for example, even as Lord John Browne, chief executive of BP, was establishing himself as a leading advocate for CSR, and the company was winning various awards for its programs. At the same time, class-action lawsuits may be brought against Wal-Mart over accusations of poor labor practices, yet the world’s largest and most successful company is rewarded by investors for driving down its costs and therefore its prices. The market, quite frankly, adores Wal-Mart. Meanwhile, a competitor outlet, Costco, which offers health insurance and other benefits to its employees, is being pressured by its shareholders to cut those benefits to be more competitive with Wal-Mart. CSR can hardly be expected to deliver when the short- term demands of the stock market provide disincentives for doing so. When shareholder interests dominate the corporate machine, outcomes may become even less aligned to the public good. As Marjorie Kelly writes in her book, “The Divine Right of Capital”: “It is inaccurate to speak of stockholders as investors, for more truthfully they are extractors.”

Myth #2: The ethical consumer will drive change. Though there is a small market that is proactively rewarding ethical business, for most consumers ethics are a relative thing. In fact, most surveys show that consumers are more concerned about things like price, taste, or sell-by date than ethics. Wal-Mart’s success certainly is a case in point. In the United Kingdom, ethical consumerism data show that although most consumers are concerned about environmental or social issues, with 83 percent of consumers intending to act ethically on a regular basis, only 18 percent of people act ethically occasionally, while fewer than 5 percent of consumers show consistent ethical and green purchasing behaviors. In the United States, since 1990, Roper ASW has tracked consumer environmental attitudes and propensity to buy environmentally oriented products, and it categorizes consumers into five “shades of green”: True-Blue Greens, Greenback Greens, Sprouts, Grousers, and Basic Browns. True-Blue Greens are the “greenest” consumers, those “most likely to walk their environmental talk,” and represent about 9 percent of the population. The least environmentally involved are the “Basic Browns,” who believe “individual actions (such as buying green products or recycling) can’t make a difference” and represent about 33 percent of the population. Joel Makower, co-author of “The Green Consumer Guide,” has traced data on ethical consumerism since the early 1990s, and says that, in spite of the overhyped claims, there has been little variation in the behavior of ethical consumers over the years, as evidenced by the Roper ASW data. “The truth is, the gap between green consciousness and green consumerism is huge,” he states. Take, for example, the growth of gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles. Even with the steep rise in fuel prices, consumers are still having a love affair with them, as sales rose by almost 8 percent in 2004. These data show that threats of climate change, which may affect future generations more than our own, are hardly an incentive for consumers to alter their behavior.

Myth #3: There will be a competitive “race to the top” over ethics amongst businesses. A further myth of CSR is that competitive pressure amongst companies will actually lead to more companies competing over ethics, as highlighted by an increasing number of awards schemes for good companies, like the Business Ethics Awards, or Fortune’s annual “Best Companies to Work For” competitions. Companies are naturally keen to be aligned with CSR schemes because they offer good PR. But in some cases businesses may be able to capitalize on well-intentioned efforts, say by signing the U.N. Global Compact, without necessarily having to actually change their behavior. The U.S.-based Corporate Watch has found several cases of “green washing” by companies, and has noted how various corporations use the United Nations to their public relations advantage, such as posing their CEOs for photographs with Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Meanwhile, companies fight to get a coveted place on the SRI indices such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes. But all such schemes to reward good corporate behavior leave us carrying a new risk that by promoting the “race to the top” idea, we tend to reward the “best of the baddies.” British American Tobacco, for example, won a UNEP/Sustainability reporting award for its annual social report in 2004. Nonetheless, a skeptic might question why a tobacco company, given the massive damage its products inflict, should be rewarded for its otherwise socially responsible behavior. While companies are vying to be seen as socially responsible to the outside world, they also become more effective at hiding socially irresponsible behavior, such as lobbying activities or tax avoidance measures. Corporate income taxes in the United States fell from 4.1 percent of GDP in 1960 to just 1.5 percent of GDP in 2001. In effect, this limits governments’ ability to provide public services like education. Of course, in the end, this is just the type of PR opportunity a business can capitalize on. Adopting or contributing to schools is now a common CSR initiative by leading companies, such as Cisco Systems or European supermarket chain Tesco.

Myth #4: In the global economy, countries will compete to have the best ethical practices. CSR has risen in popularity with the increase in reliance on developing economies. It is generally assumed that market liberalization of these economies will lead to better protection of human and environmental rights, through greater integration of oppressive regimes in the global economy, and with the watchful eye of multinational corporations that are actively implementing CSR programs and policies. Nonetheless, companies often fail to uphold voluntary standards of behavior in developing countries, arguing instead that they operate within the law of the countries in which they are working. In fact, competitive pressure for foreign investment among developing countries has actually led to governments limiting their insistence on stringent compliance with human rights or environmental standards, in order to attract investment. In Sri Lanka, for example, as competitive pressure from neighboring China has increased in textile manufacturing, garment manufacturers have been found to lobby their government to increase working hours. In the end, most companies have limited power over the wider forces in developing countries that keep overall wage rates low. Nevertheless, for many people a job in a multinational factory may still be more desirable than being a doctor or a teacher, because the wages are higher and a worker’s rights seem to be better protected. What Are the Alternatives to CSR? CSR advocates spend a considerable amount of effort developing new standards, partnership initiatives, and awards programs in an attempt to align social responsibility with a business case, yet may be failing to alter the overall landscape. Often the unintended consequences of good behavior lead to other secondary negative impacts, too. McDonald’s sale of apples, meant to tackle obesity challenges, has actually led to a loss of biodiversity in apple production, as the corporation insists on uniformity and longevity in the type of apple they may buy – hardly a positive outcome for sustainability. At some point, we should be asking ourselves whether or not we’ve in fact been spending our efforts promoting a strategy that is more likely to lead to business as usual, rather than tackling the fundamental problems. Other strategies – from direct regulation of corporate behavior, to a more radical overhaul of the corporate institution, may be more likely to deliver the outcomes we seek. Traditional regulatory models would impose mandatory rules on a company to ensure that it behaves in a socially responsible manner. The advantage of regulation is that it brings with it predictability, and, in many cases, innovation. Though fought stridently by business, social improvements may be more readily achieved through direct regulation than via the market alone. Other regulatory-imposed strategies have done more to alter consumer behavior than CSR efforts. Social labeling, for example, has been an extremely effective tool for changing consumer behavior in Europe. All appliances must be labeled with an energy efficiency rating, and the appliances rated as the most energy efficient now capture over 50 percent of the market. And the standards for the ratings are also continuously improving, through a combination of both research and legislation. Perhaps more profoundly, campaigners and legal scholars in Europe and the United States have started to look at the legal structure of the corporation. Currently, in Western legal systems, companies have a primary duty of care to their shareholders, and, although social actions on the part of companies are not necessarily prohibited, profit-maximizing behavior is the norm. So, companies effectively choose financial benefit over social ones. While a handful of social enterprises, like Fair Trade companies, have forged a different path, they are far from dominating the market. Yet lessons from their successes are being adopted to put forward a new institutional model for larger shareholder-owned companies. In the United Kingdom, a coalition of 130 NGOs under the aegis of the Corporate Responsibility Coalition (CORE), has presented legislation through the Parliament that argues in favor of an approach to U.K. company law that would see company directors having multiple duties of care – both to their shareholders and to other stakeholders, including communities, employees, and the environment. Under their proposals, companies would be required to consider, act, mitigate, and report on any negative impacts on other stakeholders. Across the pond, Corporation 20/20, an initiative of Business Ethics and the Tellus Institute, has proposed a new set of principles that enshrines social responsibility from the founding of a company, rather than as a nice-to-have disposable add-on. The principles have been the work of a diverse group including legal scholars, activists, business, labor, and journalism, and while still at the discussion phase, such principles could ultimately be enacted into law, stimulating the types of companies that might be better able to respond to things like poverty or climate change or biodiversity. Values such as equity and democracy, mainstays of the social enterprise sector, take precedence over pure profit making, and while the company would continue to be a profit-making entity in the private realm, it would not be able to do so at a cost to society. Of course, we are a long way from having any of these ideas adopted on a large scale, certainly not when the CSR movement is winning the public relations game with both governments and the public, lulling us into a false sense of security. There is room for markets to bring about some change through CSR, but the market alone is unlikely to bring with it the progressive outcomes its proponents would hope for. While the Economist argument was half correct – that CSR can be little more than a public relations device – it fails to recognize that it is the institution of the corporation itself that may be at the heart of the problem. CSR, in the end, is a placebo, leaving us with immense and mounting challenges in globalization for the foreseeable future.

CROATIA AND EUROPEAN UNION FUNDS IPA - THE NEW FINANCIAL INSTRUMENT FOR Pre-Accession Assistance

The basic purpose of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) is to support the preparation for full membership in the Union, in particular, the harmonization of national legislation with the Acquis Communautaire of the European Union and its implementation, and the preparation for the use of structural and agricultural funds after accession.

By: Nataša Mikuš, Deputy State Secretary in the Central State Administrative Office for the Development Strategy and Coordination of the European Union Funds

• Introduction.

In the beginning of 2007, a new European Union Programme will become available to Croatia, the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, which the European Commission has adopted as a unified instrument for assistance to Candidate and potential Candidate countries for EU membership, as a part of the Financial Perspectives 2007-2013.

The Communication from the Commission to the European Council and the European Parliament from 29th September 2004 (COM (2004) 626 final), concerning external assistance instruments as a part of the upcoming Financial Perspectives 2007-2013, clearly states the intention to reduce the number of geographical and thematic instruments through which the European Union finances external actions (interventions in the countries which are not its members, i.e. in the so called third countries), and to introduce a simpler way of managing these instruments. Thus, the Commission proposed to the Council the adoption of four new and keeping of two current instruments of support to the third countries:

• Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance - IPA

The basic objective of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) is to support the preparation for full membership in the Union, in particular, the harmonization of national legislation with the Acquis Communautaire of the European Union and its implementation, and the preparation for the use of structural and agricultural funds after accession. This instrument, with respect to Croatia as its user, is described in detail in chapter III.

• European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument - ENPI

The objective of this instrument, covering the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries, the countries which geographically used to belong to the west part of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the South Caucasus countries and Russia, is to promote economic and political integration of these countries into the European Union and cooperation regarding security and stability matters of common interest.

• Development Cooperation and Economic Cooperation Instrument - DCEC

This instrument is intended for any country not covered by the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance or the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument, and its purpose is to assist development, economic, financial, scientific and technical cooperation and any other form of cooperation between these countries and the European Union, and to finance measures for reduction of poverty, in accordance with the United Nations Millennium Development Objectives.

• Instrument for Stability

The Instrument for Stability is one of the instruments which the European Union member states have at their disposal for providing a suitable response to possible crisis situations or instabilities in particular geographic areas, with the special emphasis on solving the issues related to nuclear security, disarmament, suppressing human and illegal substances trafficking and the fight against terrorism.

• Humanitarian Aid Instrument

In accordance with the name of this instrument, the European Union member states will use it to extend urgent humanitarian aid to the countries or geographical areas in which there already is, or is yet to emerge, a need for such form of intervention, due to a conflict or a natural disaster.

• Macro-Financial Assistance

The European Union will continue to extend Macro-Financial Assistance, which has been in use as an instrument since 1990, to the countries which it deems to be in need of such a grant, in order to achieve macroeconomic stability and gain the necessary momentum in the implementation of challenging structural reforms.

• Programmes available to Croatia in the 2000 - 2006 period

Croatia has been a beneficiary of the European Union Programmes since 1996, when the RECONSTRUCTION Programme was formally legally established, for the purpose of implementation of the reconstruction projects in the war affected areas, promoting democracy and civil society development, and for facilitation of the return of exiles and refugees to the areas in which they have lived before the war developments.

The CARDS Programme replaced the RECONSTRUCTION Programme in 2000, as an instrument for technical/financial assistance in implementation of measures from the Stabilisation and Association Process, i.e. the obligations which Croatia has undertaken by signing the Stabilisation and Association Agreement. As a part of the CARDS Programme in the 2000 - 2004 period, a total of 262 million EUR was allocated to Croatia for the implementation of 119 projects, and Croatia was allowed to participate in the programmes and projects from its regional component.

When Croatia was granted Candidate status for the membership in the European Union in June 2004, it was also given the right to use the three pre-accession European Union Programmes:

• PHARE, the basic purpose of which is to provide assistance in harmonizing the national legislation with the Acquis Communautaire of the European Union and to provide assistance in its application, and also to prepare countries for the use of European Regional Development Fund and European Social Fund after accession; • ISPA, the purpose of which is to secure the funds for the implementation of financially demanding guidelines pertaining to the area of environmental protection and traffic infrastructure projects located on the Pan-European corridors, and to prepare the country for the use of the Cohesion fund after accession; • SAPARD, the basic purpose of which is to provide assistance to private subjects in the implementation of the Acquis Communautaire of the European Union in the area of agriculture, to stimulate the rural development measures and prepare the country for the use of agricultural funds after accession.

In the two-year programme period of using the abovementioned pre-accession programmes, Croatia has been granted a total of 252 million EUR.

It is important to point out that only a portion of the projects financed by the CARDS Programme have been implemented and completed, while other projects financed by that and the other pre-accession programmes are yet to be implemented. This in practice means that in Croatia projects financed by several European Union Programmes will be implemented simultaneously, according to somewhat different implementation procedures.

It must also be mentioned that the pre-accession programme management in Croatia is carried out on the so called decentralized basis, which means that the European Commission hands over the complete management of the programmes to the national authorities, but when it comes to PHARE/CARDS and ISPA Programmes, it retains the right to carry out the preliminary (ex-ante) controls of the tender procedures, before the conclusion of a contract with the selected contractors of the project. Accordingly, in February 2006 Croatia was awarded accreditation for the management of the PHARE and ISPA Programmes, while the granting of the accreditation for the management of the SAPARD Programme (based on the principle of subsequent, i.e., ex-post control) is expected in the course of the year.

• Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA)

As has already been mentioned in the opening of the article, in the beginning of 2007 the IPA Programme will become available to Croatia as a unified instrument which is to replace the CARDS Programme and PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD Pre-accession Programmes. IPA divides the countries into two categories: • countries with the potential Candidate status for Union membership (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia); • countries with Candidate status for European Union membership (Croatia, Macedonia, Turkey); and according to the abovementioned categorization, particular aspects of the Programme will be available to them. Thus, potential Candidate Countries will be eligible for funding intended for gradual harmonisation of the national legislation with the Acquis Communautaire and for the projects aimed at promotion of economic and social development. In the case of Candidate Countries, the European Union, besides the abovementioned forms of support, also insures the funds to finance projects for the full harmonization of the national legislation with the Acquis Communautaire, full application of the harmonized legislature and for preparation of programme beneficiaries for implementation of Cohesion and Agricultural Union policy.

The IPA Programme comprises the following five components:

• Transition Assistance and Institution Building, which is a certain direct continuation of the activities from the PHARE Programme, with the exception of Economic and Social Cohesion component; • Regional and Cross Border Cooperation, which is to finance common cross-border activities among the IPA Programme beneficiary countries and between these countries and the member states of the European Union (the examples of such cooperation are cross-border projects between Croatia and Slovenia or Croatia and Italy); • Regional development, which is the continuation of the ISPA Programme and the Economic and Social Cohesions component of the PHARE Programme, and which finances infrastructure projects of greater proportions in the area of environmental protection and traffic, as well as programmes aimed at stimulating national competitiveness and homogenous regional development. This component of the IPA Programme represents the preparation for the use of the European Regional Development Fund after accession; • Human Resources Development, as a preceding element to the European social fund, finances the projects in the area of social cohesion, for the purpose of realization of objectives within the framework of the European Employment Strategy; • Rural Development is a direct continuation of the SAPARD Programme and it insures funding for projects concerning implementation of Acquis Communautaire in the field of agriculture, and those that promote development in rural areas. This component precedes the agricultural funds which the beneficiary countries will have at disposal after accession to the Union.

According to the principle of differentiated approach to the potential Candidate countries for Union membership and to those which have Candidate status, Components I and II are open for all countries, but only the countries from the second category have the right to use Components III, IV and V.

Presuming that Candidate countries should be prepared as best as possible for independent management of the European Union funds after accession, and thus show the maturity which, as future ember states, they must have, it is expected from Candidate countries to manage the IPA Programme on decentralized basis. Detailed requirements which will be placed on Candidate countries in that respect will be known after the adoption of the Council Regulation Establishing an Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance and creation of related implementation regulations, but in this process Croatia will certainly make use of the previous experience gained during the Accreditation Process and transfer of authority for the financial management of the PHARE, ISPA and SAPARD Programmes.

Interventions financed by the IPA programme will be arranged by a multi-annual planning document, which will be created by the European Commission in cooperation with the beneficiary country, accession Partnerships and the Annual National Plans for European Union Accession. Activities which promote economic and social development, i.e. the ones which are financed within the IPA Programme Components III and IV, will be defined by specific strategic and operational documents, correspondent to Lisbon Strategy General Principles and European Commission Strategic Guidelines for its implementation, and according to priorities included in the Strategic Framework for Development 2006-2013, and the relevant national sector strategies. Interventions in the field of the rural development will be arranged by a special Rural Development Programme, which Croatia is developing in cooperation with the sector departments of the European Commission.

Questions? Answers.

Answered by: Mrs. Marija Zuber, M.Sc., counsellor-editor in the Accounting and Finance Magazine, e-mail: [email protected]

In a non-profit organization part-time employment can last at most three years.

Question: In which cases can a non-profit association conclude a part-time work contract with an employee? Can this contract be cancelled? Answer: According to the Labour Act (Official Journal No. 137/04, consolidated text) the rule is that an employer and an employee conclude a full-time work contract. The conclusion of a part- time work contract is considered as an exception and is allowed only in cases regulated by Article 15 of the Labour Act. A part-time work contract can be concluded if the termination of employment is set in advance by objective reasons which are justified by a deadline, completion of a certain task or by an occurrence of a certain event. A typical example for a part-time work contract conclusion is work with a seasonal character and a work contract for the purpose of replacement of an employee who is on sick leave or maternity leave. A part-time work contract can be concluded in any case when an employer has a need for a certain employee in a limited period of time. For example, an association may conclude a part-time contract for the purpose of performing work related to a certain project which lasts for a limited period of time, the time period is known in advance or for the purpose of performing work depending on a certain funding source. An employer needs to take care of complying with legal conditions when concluding a part- time work contract. If he concludes a part-time contract, but the grounds for a part-time contract conclusion have not been fulfilled, the employee may demand to see why a part- time contract is justified by invoking Article 5 of the Labour Act. A part-time contract needs to be concluded in writing. It must contain the time-period for which it has been concluded. The time period may be stated according to the calendar (e.g.: "for a six month period" or "until an earlier determined date"), it may be stated in a way that the time period is related to the occurrence of a certain event or fulfilment of a certain condition (e.g.: "until the return of an absent employee N.N. or "until the completion of a project X"). An employer may conclude several part-time contracts in a row, but the longest total duration is three years. The only exception are part-time work contracts concluded for the purpose of replacement of an absent employee. In this case it is allowed to conclude a part- time contract for a duration that is longer than three years. Therefore, it is important that the total duration of part-time employment for the same kind of work is no longer than three years, and there are no obstacles to extend the contract several times within these three years. A part-time contract concluded for a defined time period ceases with the expiration of the time for which it has been concluded. As a rule, the contract need not be cancelled, unless the contracting parties have envisaged the possibility of cancelling it, but the contract ceases with the expiration of a time period which is defined in the contract as the time period of its duration. An employer must be cautious concerning the part-time work contract expiration date, so that the part-time contract by force of law does not become a full-time contract. In other words, if an employee continues with the employer after the expiration of time period for which the part-time contract has been concluded, it is automatically considered that the employee and the employer have concluded a full-time contract. In case of a full-time contract, the regulations governing contract termination are different. If the employee, while under a part-time contract, is in the moment of a part-time contract expiration found to be on sick or maternity leave, the employer nevertheless needs to sign him/her out of the pension and health insurance system. Sick and maternity leave do not affect the termination of a part-time work contract. If the employee, after a part-time contract expiration, is incapable of working due to diseases, he is then entitled to receive income benefit at the expense of the Croatian Institute for Health Insurance in the length of 30 days after employment termination, and he may enforce this right by applying to the competent department of HZZO (Croatian Institute For Health Insurance). In case of pregnancy or the right to maternity leave are reasons for inability to work, the right to charge HZZO with income benefit can be achieved until the expiration of these rights as prescribed for employed persons.

From all sides

This year's Gay Pride parade in Zagreb passed without incidents On the 24th of June 2006, peacefully and without incidents the Gay Pride passed in Zagreb, the fifth Zagreb and the first international pride parade which gathered about 250 participants from Croatia and 13 European countries, escorted by about 500 policemen.

The organizer of this year's parade, held under the motto Living freely!, was the lesbian group Kontra, and for the first time the representatives of similar associations from Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Hercegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Poland, Slovakia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Latvia arrived in Zagreb. Mr. Marko Jurčić, one of the organisers of the International Pride parade, said that the fifth Pride parade in Zagreb was the most peaceful one. He mentioned that, beside other things, the main message is freedom of assembly, expression and movement and that this year the parade participants have specially assembled to stand up for workers rights. He also said that about 40 guests came to Zagreb from Eastern Europe and about 100 from the states of ex-Yugoslavia.

Dubravko Novak, the deputy head of the Zagreb Police Department confirmed to journalists that the parade passed without problems and incidents. (HINA)

A motion picture, that enables blind people to watch the film independently, has been played for the first time in the Zagreb CineStar Multiplex in Croatia In the Zagreb CineStar Multiplex, on the 4th of July 2006, for the first time in Croatia, as part of the project I listen, therefore I see, an animated film Over the Fence has been played for blind people who were able to watch the film independently. The project has been initiated by the Imagine Association which promotes high quality education for teenagers with invalidity. The American animated film synchronised into Croatian has been played by using technology which was by now available only in West European cinemas, therefore Over the Fence is the first film in Croatia that is permanently accessible to blind people, as stated by the Blitz film and Video distributor. By using this new technology, blind people can watch the film smoothly with the aid of a receiver with a digital connection through which earlier recorded narration is transmitted, which means that at the same time the other spectators in the hall are not disturbed. The animated film Over the Fence is a new hit produced by the DreamWorks Studio, who are the creators of popular Shrek and Madagascar, and which, from the 8th of June in Croatian cinemas can be seen in the original and synchronised version of the film. Representatives of the Imagine Association have expressed satisfaction with the successful launching of this useful project and have also expressed a wish to make available to blind people the same way of watching other films in other cinemas in Croatia where technical possibilities exist for carrying out such a projection.

Beside Blitz Film and the Blitz - Cinestar Company, for the accomplishment of this project the Imagine Association received the support from the Ater Studio, the Drama Actors Association and Grail Film. (HINA)

"Medium intensity" trafficking in Croatia

According to the assessment of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published at the end of July 2006, Croatia belongs to the group of countries in which the outspread of human trafficking is of "medium intensity". The UN Office report divides the countries in three categories - those in which there is organized trafficking, transit countries and the countries which are destinations of the victims of trafficking. Croatia belongs to the middle group in all three categories, that is, it is somewhere between the countries with the high and those with the low trafficking intensity. On the European continent, a very high level of organized criminal trafficking has been recorded in Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Moldavia, Romania, Russia and Ukraine. A high level has been recorded in Armenia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland and Slovakia. The countries belonging to the group with the very high transit are Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy and Poland, and with high Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Kosovo, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro, Slovakia, Macedonia, Turkey and Ukraine. Enslaved people mostly arrive, at least as far as Europe is concerned, to Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, said in his Report from April 2006 that it is disgraceful that at the threshold of the twenty- first century there still exists human trafficking, i.e. slavery, and concluded that trafficking became the global problem which requires a world wide action. He has also warned about the fact that women and children are the predominant victims of trafficking, and that sexual abuse and slave work are the main characteristics of illegal trafficking.

The number of registered addicts grows up to 15% a year

Jadranka Kosor, the president of the Croatian Government Committee for Combating Narcotic Drug Abuse, said on the press conference on 26 June 2006, on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, that new national measures against drugs will focus particularly on the earliest possible discovering of drug users and their urgent treatment. Research has shown that the average Croatian teenager tries some kind of a drug for the first time at the age of 16, while the average age of the first heroin consummation is 19.9. The addicts take the first intravenous dose of heroin with 20.8 years, and apply for their first treatment against the addiction with 27.4 years. "This means that 11 years pass from the first experimentation to the first treatment, and this problem needs our special attention", emphasized Kosor. 6,668 drug addicts were registered in 2005, which is 15.6 percent more than the year before. The number of newly recorded recovering drug addicts in 2005 was 1,770, which is the increase of 9.33 percent as compared to 2004. The registry of the patients treated for taking psychoactive drugs during 2005 counts 22,360 persons. In terms of the number of recovering drug addicts per 100.000 citizens, the most distinct problems with the drug abuse were recorded in the Istarska county, followed by Zadarska, Šibensko-Kninska and Varaždinska counties.

Kosor: Football Championship TV Commercial Violates Women's Rights

Jadranka Kosor, the Croatian Minister of the Family, Veterans' Affairs and Intergenerational Solidarity, has asked the Croatian Television (HTV) to stop showing commercials which violate women's rights, and as the example has mentioned the commercial in which a woman was tied in a toilet, with tape over her mouth, while a man was preparing to watch a football match. "Apart from the message that during the World Championship the women need to be tied and their mouth taped humiliates the women, this 'commercial' suggestively sends a public invitation for violence towards women", stands in the Minister's announcement in which she demands from HTV to stop further broadcasting of "such advertising contents". HTV broadcasted the controversial advertisement as announcement of the World Football Championship on June 5 just before the "Otvoreno" program. Minister Kosor believes that the advertisement violates the women's rights in a particularly coarse manner and that its contents are contrary to all international documents of protection and promotion of gender equality. The Minister reminded that gender equality is one of the basic values of Croatian constitutional order and that the struggle against the domestic violence is one of its priorities. Janos Roemer, the spokesman of the Croatian Radio and Television (HRT), has stated for Croatian news agency HINA that he was currently unable to give any comments except that HTV would investigate whether "everything was in accordance with the law" in the concerned case. Moreover, the disputable advertisement which announces the World Football Championship was broadcasted before the "Otvoreno" program in which unequal work conditions and wages for men and women were discussed. The Finnish model of prohibiting and sanctioning such advertising works was also mentioned in the program. (HINA)

PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals) in Lebanon

PETA (People for Ethical Treatment of Animals), the largest world non-profit organization fighting for ethical treatment of animals and protection of animal rights, has organized this summer the rescue of animals from Lebanon war territories.

Michelle Rokke, a PETA activist, entered in the beginning of August the Hezbollah-controlled Southern Lebanon bomb zone in order to take supplies to as many animals as her rescue team can find. She made contact with Lebanese PETA volunteers from Beirut and negotiated with armed fighters who agreed to help her with deliveries of food and water consignments for cats and dogs.

1. Kind people know that hungry animals don't have political alliances, said Michelle, determined to help the animals. The majority of the inhabitants of that area, which was full of bomb craters and cut off from surrounding settlements, left several weeks earlier after the only bridge had been destroyed, leaving the animals behind. Driving across the mountains, PETA's car succeeded in arriving to the area by following the UN convoy. Michelle asked the UN workers to be on the lookout for the animals in need of help, and distributed fliers with advice of how to help the animals in distress by giving them water and releasing them from chains in abandoned houses, thus giving them the opportunity to flee. (S.Č.)