The supply, accessibility and efficiency of social services are important factors in the quality of life of society, as they are the basis for maintaining social well-being and the quality of life of people with social needs. Local communities, as the smallest part of the social system of society, are becoming a significant stakeholder in the formation and provision of social services. The aim of this article, as well as the conducted qualitative research, is to reveal and discuss the topic relevant today - the involvement of local community organizations (NGOs) in community service development processes, focusing on NGO capacity building and sustainability. The article reveals the possibilities of community-level NGOs in Lithuania to actively participate in the provision of social services. The research was carried out by interviewing the leaders and representatives of NGOs belonging to the Kaunas Community Association. The results of the research reveal the current conditions and perspective opportunities of local NGOs to develop and provide social services at the local level and allow a clearer understanding of the sector’s readiness for the development of social services in Lithuania. The study showed that although non-governmental organizations can be actively involved in the provision of social services, there are some limitations due to non-constructive communication with public institutions and the lack of financial resources. Although local NGOs provide some social services at the community level, the need for social services is significantly greater than the capacity of the organization.

Today we are witnessing a fundamental shift in Public International Law (PIL) in which the number of actors increases dramatically and in which communication means power. The matrix of PIL is undergoing a major change. This change is not abrupt but has to be seen in the context of the shift away from the Westphalian model of PIL since 1945. Also, globalization is not a new phenomenon, although the current era of globalization, which was made possible due to the fall of the iron curtain and recent technological developments, raises the question how to describe the emerging international legal community in terms of international legal theory. As the importance of the role of the state as an actor of international law is reduced (albeit not to a degree that the state would lose its de facto primacy among the subjects of international law), other actors are gaining ground, in particular international organizations, transnational corporations, NGOs and individuals. Today the latter not only have rights under Public International Law but are also involved in the creation of new rules of international law.

The article aims to present the attitude of state‘s institutions that have features of national human rights institutions (the Ombudsman for Equal Opportunities, the Ombudsman for Children Rights, the Seimas Ombudsmen, the Inspector of Journalist Ethics and the State Data Protection Inspectorate) toward their cooperation with human rights NGOs. As shown the analysis based on primary sources and structural interview, the state‘s institution‘s attitude on their cooperation with human rights NGOs is not integral one and closely related with specialization of institution, i.e. in assessing the intensity of cooperation the area of human rights where the state institution and human rights NGOs operate is crucial. In the context of cooperation the status of human rights NGOs is of great importance as well: state‘s institutions are eager to cooperate with active, reliable, permanently working NGOs, rather than the „paper one“, unreliable, destructive their counterparts. In summarizing, the state‘s institutions attitude on their cooperation with human rights NGOs could be described in using several pairs of adjectives: sufficient versus insufficient; continual versus epizodical one; initiated by both sides versus NGOs initiators and broad versus narrow spectrum of cooperation with human rights NGOs.