Civil Society Facility and Media Programme (Albania)

Deadline: 15-May-24

The European Commission (EC) is offering grants to support civil society organisations in Albania in the field of Environment, Culture and Food Safety and Consumer Protection.

Civil society and media organisations in Albania play an important role to promote democratic debate, to protect the respect of fundamental rights and equality, as well as to contribute to key sectoral reforms. The engagement of CSOs is essential to ensure strengthened participation of citizens to the decision making process, through effective consultations and civic participation, both at central and local level. In this historical moment for the country, civil society needs even more support to be able to play fully its role.

Objectives and Priorities

• The global objective of this call for proposals is to strengthen the role and capacity of civil society to promote and defend a more participatory, just and democratic society.
• Lot 1: Support to CSOs in the fields of environment, climate change, and nature protection
  • The specific objective of this lot is to increase capacities of CSOs to participate in the decision-making process, cooperate with the relevant stakeholders and monitor in the field of environment, climate change and conservation issues.
  • The priorities of this lot are:
    • Support CSOs’ role and capacities in fighting environmental, biodiversity and climate degradation, through influencing and monitoring the policy process and advocating for changes and reforms;
    • Strengthen cooperation among CSOs and other stakeholders in policy and concrete actions that increase the protection of environment and biodiversity and a number of actions against climate change, at local and national level in order to empower civil society to participate in all policy/reform processes, including their implementation;
    • Increase awareness and support behavioural change to protect the environment, biodiversity, and fight environmental crime and climate change.
• Lot 2: Support to CSOs in the fields of culture and art
  • The specific objective of this lot is to strengthen the role and capacities of CSOs to influence, monitor, and advocate on culture.
  • The priorities of this lot are:
    • Support CSOs’ role and capacities in the cultural sector, through influencing and monitoring the policy process and advocating for changes and reforms;
    • Encourage the younger generations to be engaged on the promotion and safeguarding of cultural heritage.
    • Increase awareness to protect the culture heritage
• Lot 3: Support to CSOs in the fields of food safety and consumer protection
  • The specific objective of this lot is to strengthen the role and capacities of CSOs to influence, monitor, and advocate on food safety and consumer protection related issues.
  • The priorities of this lot are:
    • Support CSOs’ role and capacities on food safety related issues and consumer protection; through influencing and monitoring the policy process and advocating for changes and reforms;
    • Strengthen the role and capacities of CSOs and CSOs networks/platforms to engage in monitoring, oversight, advocacy, education and awareness raising on food safety veterinary and phytosanitary issues;
    • Raise public awareness about food safety and consumer  choices, roles and responsibilities, and increasingly demand safe and high-quality food products.

Focus Areas

• Environment
• Culture
• Food safety and Consumers’ Protection

Funding Information

• Lot 1:
  • Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following amounts:
    • Minimum amount: EUR 400 000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 450 000
  • The overall indicative amount made available under this lot is EUR 1 800 000. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
• Lot 2:
  • Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following amounts:
    • Minimum amount: EUR 320 000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 380 000
  • The overall indicative amount made available under this lot is EUR 1 000 000. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
• Lot 3:
  • Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following amounts:
    • Minimum amount: EUR 150,000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 170,000
  • Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall within the following percentages of total eligible costs of the action:
    • Minimum percentage: 60 % of the total eligible costs of the action.
    • Maximum percentage: 95 % of the total eligible costs of the action
  • The balance (i.e. the difference between the total cost of the action and the amount requested from the contracting authority) must be financed from sources other than the general budget of the Union or the European Development Fund.
  • The overall indicative amount made available under this lot is EUR 500,000. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.

Eligibility Criteria

• In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  • be a legal person
  • be non-profit-making and
  • be a non-governmental organisation and
  • be established in Albania or in a Member State of the European Union or in another IPA III beneficiary  or in one of the members of the European Economic Area covered by CIR and
  • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary
• Co-applicant(s)
  • There must be at least one (1) up to a maximum of two (2) co-applicants.
  • Either the lead applicant or one of the co-applicants must be registered in Albania.
  • Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
  • Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.
• Affiliated entities
  • The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
  • Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co-applicant(s):
    • Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
    • This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
      • Control on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
        • Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
          • Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
          • Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
          • Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
      • Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association,) as the proposed affiliated entities.

For more information, visit European Commission.