At a ceremony which was held in Zagreb, the USAID director for Croatia, William Jeffers, said he had been on the ground and was convinced that NGOs had made great progress in their communities.
The progress in building civil society and democracy in Croatia is the reason for USAID's interest and the agency will continue to support CroNGO projects in the next three years, Jeffers said.
Of the 34 NGOs that were awarded, 24 are active in northern and central Croatia, and 10 in western Slavonia.
These groups have been given 246,000 dollars within the CroNGO projects and have managed to collect an additional 7.5 million kuna in the country.
A state secretary at the Croatian Health and Social Welfare Ministry, Nino Zganec, said that 15,000 persons, disabled persons or other categories of the needy, benefitted from the projects carried out by these groups.