The Swiss Government project “For an Active Civil Society Together – ACT” announces a Call for Innovative Partnership Initiatives between Civil Society Organisations (CSO) and Local Government units (LG).

The Call for CSO-LG Innovative Partnership Grants aims to promote and strengthen partnerships between civil society organisations and local governments through the launch, development, and implementation of joint initiatives that will create innovative solutions and tools for greater citizen participation in decision-making processes, improving public service delivery, and better monitoring of the work of local authorities. In addition, the Call aims to improve cooperation between citizens and decision makers, as well as to promote the role of new technologies and digital tools in the process of creating public policies that are more citizen-oriented and in line with their needs and requirements. Through this Call, the ACT project supports, advocates, and seeks to ensure the further development of a culture of civic and political dialogue at the local level.

For the purposes of this Call, innovation is defined as any good practice that promotes the principles of transparency, integrity, accountability, and citizen participation in support of democracy and good governance. At its core, innovation is a novelty for the organisation or institution in which it is applied (practice, model, service that did not exist before or was not used) and which has / can have the potential to make a measurable public impact in the local community.

Project proposals for innovative partnership initiatives between civil society organisations and local governments will be supported within four lots:

LOT 1: Innovative solutions and tools for citizen participation in decision-making processes (up to 10 grants)

LOT 2: Innovative solutions and tools for providing services to citizens (up to 5 grants)

LOT 3: Innovative solutions and tools for monitoring the work of local government units (up to 5 grants)

LOT 4: Democratic response to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic (up to 10 grants)

Note: If the funds allocated for a particular lot cannot be used due to insufficient quality or the number of received project proposals, the ACT project reserves the right to reallocate the remaining funds to (other) lots.

The project proposal must be in line with relevant national and local legislation and/or strategies (e.g. laws, bylaws, strategies, action plans, etc.) and show a clear contribution to the realisation of the objectives of national and local strategic documents and action plans (gender equality, human and minority rights, environmental protection, social protection, local economic development, various services to citizens, etc.) Also, project proposals should offer creative and innovative solutions that will enable more efficient implementation of innovations from the Law on Local Self-Government when it comes to citizen participation in creating and making decisions at the local level. The submission of project proposals that introduce gender-sensitive approaches, tools and services, as well as those related to the issues of sensitive and marginalised groups, is especially encouraged and will be assigned additional value.

Basic information of this call:

• Target group: civil society organisations (CSOs) and local government units (LGs)
• Maximum amount per project proposal: RSD 1,400,000.00
• Duration of individual contracts: 18 months
• Indicative number of supported CSO-LG partnerships: up to 30
• Geographical coverage of the Call: Sumadija and Western Serbia, Southern and Eastern Serbia (except Belgrade and Vojvodina)

Detailed information regarding the application can be found in the Guidelines for Submitting Project Proposals for CSO-LG Innovative Partnership Grants, which are included in the attached package of documents.

PLEASE NOTE that the pages in English are for information only, as grants are provided only for entities registered in Serbia, so full documentation can only be found on the Serbian pages of this website.