We are happy to share that the contract signing ceremony with the Regional Grants winning organizations was held on December 29th via ZOOM!
About Regional grants
Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia, as beneficiary countries of the Smart Balkans project, form a geographical region in which politically, socially, culturally, and historically these countries are linked.
Strengthening the capacity of CSOs in the region through enhanced cooperation between civil society and government and through building regional partnerships at all levels to increase the influence of citizens in the decision-making process, will contribute to the desired change of creating peaceful and inclusive communities in the Western Balkans which will promote sustainable development of their societies. Civil society participation in the policy development processes is one of the most important ingredients to European integration. One of the Smart Balkans objectives is for the project to support the Euro-Atlantic integration of the region and considering that European integration is not just individual objective of each project’s beneficiary countries, but of the region, the project aims to facilitate regional cooperation and networking towards that goal. For this purpose, Smart Balkan has designed the regional grant scheme, although creating regional networks and partnerships will be stressed wherever possible.
Regional Grants are a funding mechanism for consortiums of minimum 3 CSOs from 3 countries, and/or formal or informal regional networks for projects related to Security and Stability, and Governance, with strong regional dimension.
While the type of activities to support the above priority areas are to be proposed by the applicant, the following non-exhaustive list of examples can be given:
Security and Stability
- Combating radicalization
- Disinformation as a security threat
- Arms trafficking
- Human trafficking
- Cybercrime as a destabilizer of security
- The fight against organized crime
- Prevention of money laundering
- The fight against terrorism
- Good security amid the armed conflict and climate change
- The influence of the climate change on the security and stability in the region
- Energy security
- Preparedness for emergency situations
- Intercultural dialogue
- Social cohesion, reconciliation and peace
- Human security and gender equality
- Cyber security
- Data privacy
- Overseeing security institutions/monitoring the implementation of security and stability policies
Governance
- Promoting digital literacy
- Freedom of expression
- Civil society participation in decision making
- Fight against fake news
- Euro-Atlantic integration
- Digitalization
- Public administration reforms
- Hidden economy
- Corruption, including high level corruption
Expected results
- Developed strong regional partnerships between civil society organizations from the region of the Western Balkans
- Developed strong regional partnership between CSOs and with their EU counterparts and public authorities
- Increased effectiveness of citizen influencing through regional networking on Security and Stability and Governance in the Western Balkans region
Who are the winning organisations?
- Cooperation and development institute from Albania
- Sos Helpline Nikšić from Montenegro
- Novi Sad School of journalism from Serbia
- Albanian Disability Right Foundation from Albania
- European Policy Centre from Serbia
- Institute for strategic Research and Education from North Macedonia
- Children & youth from Serbia
- International association “Interactive open schools” – MIOS from Bosnia and Herzegovina
- FINANCE THINK – Economic Research and Policy Institute from North Macedonia
