Development of the Draft Law on Charity 

ICNL Legal Consultant is continuing the work on the development of the draft law on charity with the 

working group, additional support to the working is provided under a grant by OSI.  While the 

drafters have progressed with many provisions of the draft law making them more NGO friendly, the 

principle issue of the appropriateness of the charity commission certification process for charities 

chosen by the drafters remains to be valid. The working group decided to choose the charity 

commission as a certification mechanism to identify charities among other NGOs. While this 

mechanism proves to be effective in several countries ICNL's experts continue to express concern 

that the conditions in Uzbekistan might not allow for the effective work of such a commission as an 

independent non corrupt body authorized to define who is eligible for tax benefits (charities).  Yet, it 

is still not clear whether the new law will relate to new tax benefits for charities, which is the only 

reason to adopt such a law.   

Consultation to USAID and US Embassy 

In June ICNL received a request from US Embassy and USAID to review the charter and minutes of 

meetings of the human rights NGO  IHROU  to provide them with ICNL's opinion whether the 

appropriate procedures were followed when members of NGOs elected new leadership. In dealing 

with this issue, ICNL followed with its status of  honor broker  and gave the expertise to and 

answered on specific questions of USAID's representatives. 

Legal Consultations Provided to 17 Local NGOs and International Organizations 

Alexander Galaganov, ICNL's Legal Consultant in Uzbekistan, rendered 17 consultations to local 

NGOs and international organizations in resolving legal questions and issues. Legal questions and 

issues provided to these organizations varied from registration and taxation to labor contracts and 

possible ways of registration of formal/informal association of NGOs. In particularly, the specifics of 

labor contracts and civil legal agreements were in demand by various international organizations. 

Consultations were provided to such organizations and institutions as, ACDI/VOCA, USAID, CAIP, 

CASP, CHAP, CHF, US embassy (through USAID), Counterpart Consortium, CSSCs in Namangan, 

Nukus, Kokand, Bukhara, OSI, and local,  Renaissance ,  Hamroh , and  United Research Center . 

Publications 

Open Society Institute provided cost share funding for printing 2000 copies of the Manual on NGO 

Taxation and Accounting and for production of 1000 CDs. However, due to the strong demand among 

NGOs and government officials for this manual, it is already obvious that these copies are not enough. 

During June, two thousand (2000) additional copies of the Manual on NGO Taxation and Accounting 

will be published with financial assistance of AED. 

D.  COODINATION AND COOPERATION 

Regional 

ICNL worked in close cooperation with Counterpart International and its in country offices. All 

ICNL activities have been coordinated with the USAID regional and in country offices. 

ICNL provided regular updates to other USAID grantees on its activities and plans and 

developments in the NGO legislation around the region.  ICNL also cooperates closely with other 

international organizations, including OSCE, UNDP, UNHCR, Soros Foundation, NDI, Eurasia 

Foundation, Aga Khan Foundation, Asian Developing Bank, and other organizations. 

ICNL works in partnership with the Center for Corporate Citizenship of the US Chamber of 

Commerce based in Washington DC on its corporate philanthropy project.  In addition, ICNL's 

Central Asia office utilized informational resources provided by the Council on Accreditation 

(COA) based in New York on issues of self regulation and formal accreditation services for non 

profit organizations. 

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