The project of the Government of Switzerland "Together for an Active Civil Society – ACT" issued a call for project proposals for the public advocacy of networks of civil society organizations (CSOs).

The call is aimed at strengthening the capacity of CSO networks for public advocacy at the local and national levels and at increasing the involvement of citizens in decision-making processes at the local and national levels.

The forms of association that are considered to be CSO networks in this call are the following:

• Formal networks – networks registered with the Business Registers Agency (BRA) as associations, in accordance with the provisions of the Law on Associations (Article 7);
• Informal networks (coalitions, alliances, platforms, unions, etc.) – networks that do not have the status of a legal entity or that are not registered in the BRA as alliances and whose members are CSOs registered in accordance with the Law on Associations or the Law on Endowments and Foundations.

In their project proposals, CSO networks should emphasize the greatest possible mobilization and participation of citizens in all phases of public advocacy, with the aim of greater participation of citizens in the decision-making process at the local and/ or national level. Innovative approaches to designing and implementing public advocacy campaigns in which citizens actively participate, improving the communication of networks with the public and greater visibility of the advocacy initiative and the work of the network in the public are especially encouraged.

The networks whose project proposals are approved for funding will have the opportunity to go through a capacity building and strengthening program, which will be implemented as a complementary/parallel grant implementation program and will be funded from the ACT project budget. The program will cover topics such as: citizen mobilization, participatory advocacy, communication, network development and management.

Through this call, the ACT project plans to support up to 10 project proposals of formal and informal CSO networks, operating at the national and/or local level. The amount of individual financial support is up to 2,950,000.00 dinars.

The application deadline is October 7, 2020.

Detailed information on the call is available on act.org.rs.

Source: act.org.rs and Coordination Body