Today in Yerevan, the EU Ambassador to Armenia Piotr Świtalski announced € 1.5 million Grant Scheme aiming at reinforcing civil society in Armenia and to provide Civil Society Organisations with alternative sources of financing. At the same time the EU is looking for innovative projects that will make Armenia healthier, safer, cleaner and more sustainable.

EU Ambassador noted: “We believe that the engagement of citizens is key in achieving social and behavioural changes related to our shared values. For this reason, the EU will also support, under this call, information campaigns run by Civil Society Organisation that aim at increasing public accountability while increasing the engagement of citizens”.

The new grant scheme “Reinforcing Civil Society in Armenia”, with a budget of € 1.5 million, pursues to (1) Increase monitoring capacity of civil society, (2) Increase public accountability through public awareness campaigns aiming at behavioural changes in topics such as nutrition, road safety, energy saving, environment, recycling, etc.  and (3) Reinforce civil society through financial diversification and sustainability such fundraising, crowdfunding campaign and promotion of social enterprises.

The call for proposals has objectives to finance a number of Civil Society Organisations aimed at increasing the role of civil society, promoting cooperation between EU and Armenia, as well as to ensure reforms monitoring and public accountability growth in the areas that include EU-Armenia agreements.

The EU is looking for innovative projects to make Armenia healthier, safer, cleaner and more sustainable. The global objective of this call for proposals is to finance a number of civil society initiatives aimed at enhancing the role of civil society in promoting EU-Armenia cooperation and monitoring reforms and increasing public accountability in areas covered by the EU-Armenia agreements. The call for proposal will complement the ongoing capacity building and re-granting programmes: (i) STRONG Civil Society Organisations for Stronger Armenia, (ii) Commitment to Constructive Dialogue, (iii) CSO 2.0 and (iv) Community development through social entrepreneurship.

This call will also complement the ongoing direct support to Civil Society Organization (CSO) via 30 grants contracts.

Sub-granting, the provision of financial support to third parties, will be a core characteristic of this call.

The overall amount made available under this call for proposals is of EUR 1 500 000 in the form of grants between EUR 150 000 and EUR 400 000.