New fund in administration of three slovak foundations will support activities and development of civil society
Bratislava, Banská Bystrica (the 27th June 2017) – From next year, civic movements and organisations will have an opportunity to apply for financial resources from Active Citizens Fund. The fund will be directed by the consortium of three foundations – The Ekopolis Foundation, The Open Society Foundation and The Carphatian Foundation. During the next four years, they will redistribute 8 millions euros for projects by non-governmental organisations. The fund is part of over 110 millions financial aid, which were offered to Slovakia by three countries of European Economic Area – Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.
Supporting civic society is for so called “EEA and Norwegian funds” long term priority. Choice for the operator of the Active Citizens Fund happened based on a open public contest by the Financial Mechanism Office in Brussels. This office manages financial support for 15 beneficiary countries of EU including Slovak republic.
“We are glad that we succeeded in a good thing and that the civic society will gain the key support for its activity and development. Unfortunately, the place for obtaining resources for activities of advocacy and human rights organizations is still minimal” said Peter Medveď, director of The Ekopolis Foundation. “As an important thing we also consider the fact that the fund is going to be managed in cooperation with three experienced fundations. Active Citizens Fund will be then outstandingly important grant scheme, focused on reinforcement of civil principles in administration of public affairs.” he added.
The goal of the new Active Citizens Fund is a reinforcement of the civil society and an increase of social awareness and engagement of vulnerable groups. Support will also focus on long term sustainability and building of capacities from civilian sector, so they can lead to reinforcement of civil participation, active citizenship and human rights.
Support will be directed into 5 areas:
- Democracy, active citizenship, public administration and transparency,
- Human rights and equality of treatment, action against discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, age, gender equality or identity,
- Social justice and inclusion of vulnerable part of population
- Gender equality and prevention of abuse based on gender
- Environment and climate change
Slovakia is the first of 15 countries of middle and southeast Europe, where the preparation of new round of the support reached the final phase. Fund management consortium under the leadership of The Ekopolis Foundation will invite non-governmental organisations in the July of this year, for public consultations, whose aim is going to be talking about goals of the fund’s focusing. First grant’s calls will be declared after the conclusion of contract with the Office for Financial Mechanisms in Brussels. The contract should be signed during the last quarter of 2017.
In the previous season, similar programs for non-governmental organisation were administered by two operators – first operator was the consortium under the leadership of The Ekopolis Foundation with The Children of Slovakia Foundation and The Socia Foundations and the second operator was The Open Society Foundation. You can find the report about results of these programs on websites www.ekopolis.sk and www.osf.sk.