The Mission of «Interbilim» is to strengthen Civil Society through increasing the role of the non-governmental sector working with vulnerable and needy groups to improve the society and living conditions of the people of the Kyrgyz Republic and improve the environment for the development of civil society.

The activity of Interbilim for the period 2005-2007-2010 will be concentrated in the following spheres:

• Lobbying and long term strategies
• Advocacy campaigns and quick reaction
• Development of leadership, interregional activity
• Strengthening NGOs working with vulnerable groups            
• Capacity building of business associations, unions of agricultural producers

History of Interbilim

Centre «Interbilim» grew from an initiative in 1993 and was first aimed at strengthening of national NGO's and CSO's in Kyrgystan. Very soon the organisation added to this ‘service' orientation a role of advocacy toward the new national government, in order to create a more favourable environment for the NGO sector as a whole. In the early days this work consisted for a large part, of explaining the concept of NGOs and, to the government side, the understanding of this phenomena and ways how to cooperate with this new civil society.

Later services to the NGO client group expanded and became a complex of training, support, mediation in relations with donors etc. The advocacy part of the work gradually changed from ‘explaining' the issues to the authorities, to ‘arguing' with them and later criticising and pressuring government, parliament and local leaders.

Interbilim became more and more part of the ‘core' group of critical civil actors, basically unhappy with the way the young Kyrgyz democracy developed into a more and more autocratic system of governance. This exposed Interbilim as a ‘pillar' of democratic development, to which many smaller organisation went, to get support for their actions. Other organisations asked Interbilim to take action for them, where they themselves are too afraid or too inexperienced to do so. From the official side (under the influence of the advocacy activities) Interbilim came from time to time under pressure because of its outspoken criticism.

The new and outspoken advocacy role became a dominant element in the reputation and the approach of Interbilim, although the organisation never lost its relationship with leading politicians and parties. Advocacy, meaning a ‘problem oriented approach', became an element of daily practise of the work of Interbilim (also influencing the services provided to NGOs). As a result the capacity of Interbilim for ‘quick reaction' to ‘events' or crisis situations increased and was by 2004 on a good level.

In 2002/2003 Interbilim decided to re-evaluate its policies and strategies and decided to enlarge the role of lobbying as an instrument of its core strategies. This implies a more systematic and long term approach to problems, more ‘process` and 'solution` oriented, with a focus on long term results and objectives and a less militant but more ‘mediation' type of attitude to - at least part of - the work of the organisation. Mediation and conflict resolution have always been an aspect of the work of Interbilim (Interbilim is praised for the fact that it never lost its relations with leading circles in Kyrgyz society), but lobbying has not so far develop in the same way as advocacy did in the past.

Another strategy that was re-iterated was the service ‘on demand' to international agencies and donors in short term ‘projects' or campaigns. To this extend the organisations needs to be flexible enough and able to react quickly and with quality to external demands.