The Swiss Government project ‘For an Active Civil Society Together – ACT’ has launched a Call for Proposals for LocalAdvocacy Grants.
Under this call for proposals, the ACT project supports local initiatives, advocates better public services and successful networking, and strives to ensure a continued development of the culture of civic and political dialogue. ACT envisages two calls for proposals for the award of Local Advocacy Grants (LAG).
Local Advocacy Grants will help empower civil society to participate in the decision-making and policymaking processes more efficiently and more actively through advocacy, and to mobilise the support of citizens and represent their interests in the decision-making processes, particularly at the local level.
The awarded CSOs will also become the beneficiaries of a specially designed and tailored programme that will help them build capacity and upgrade the know-how in the areas such as citizen mobilisation/participation and advocacy. Capacity building will include group training and individual mentoring aimed at facilitating and enhancing the organisational development of the CSOs, enabling them to better connect with their constituencies and expand their social influence concerning relevant issues in their local communities.
Under this Call for Proposals, the ACT project plans to support up to 8 civil society organisations with the maximum grant amount of RSD1,400,000.00 per project.
After the first selection round, the infield assessors interviewed and evaluated 17 shortlisted civil society organisations and recommended 13 CSOs for the next selection round. Theydid an in-depth analysis of the integrity and core values of civil society organisations (respect of human rights, transparency, inclusion, working for the common good and in public interest, etc.). They also analysed the CSOs’ experience, capacity and potential to mobilise citizens to participate in problem-solving in their communities, and their proposed advocacy plans.
In the next stage of the selection process, the Validation Committee will select the final 8 civil society organisations that will be awarded local advocacy grants. We will publish the final results by the end of September 2020.
Congratulations to the civil society organisations that have been shortlisted for the next round. We encourage other civil society organisations and informal groups to follow our project activities and apply for our future grants.
Civil Society Organisations Advancing to the Third Round:
