With its partners, PILent is strengthening civil society in Central Asia through legal workshops. Due to changing laws and increased government restrictions in Kazakhstan, civil society organizations have experienced greater difficulty registering. Because of this ongoing concern, on March 4th, PILnet and Morgan Lewis’s Kazakhstan office conducted a workshop to empower the sector by giving them the necessary legal knowledge to navigate these new laws and restrictions.
Klara Nurgaziyeva, partner at Morgan Lewis, gave a presentation on the particularities of nonprofit registration in Kazakhstan. She presented all possible forms of registration, including registration categories not traditionally used by nonprofits, and highlighted gaps in the law. This workshop also discussed whether certain community initiatives should register as nonprofits or if they have the legal option to not register at all, as well as understanding why they had their nonprofit registration rejected by the government. In addition, Anastassia Miller, PILnet fellow, gave a presentation during this workshop on the PILnet Global Clearinghouse program and invited civil society organizations from Kazakhstan use this clearinghouse as a resource.
PILnet will continuing partnering with Morgan Lewis in Kazakhstan to provide more workshops, with the goal of creating a more resilient civil society in Central Asia.
