Deadline: 25 July 2016
The Roma Initiatives Office (RIO) invites eligible organizations for its Civil Society Fund for Roma Integration 2020 program, in order to obtain support for national-level monitoring and advocacy aimed at ensuring that Roma-specific targets are included in major policy reforms and national budgets.
The Civil Society Fund for Roma Integration 2020 is part of RIO’s Paruvipe portfolio, which supports advocacy aimed at influencing public decision making and service delivery by seizing political opportunities, extending our partnerships with pro-Roma civil society, and experimenting with new models for influencing national governments, and in particular national budgets.
Program Priorities
Coalitions should be self-organized and as representative as possible and should provide well-argued policy input to the national political process. More concretely:
- National coalitions are expected to organize themselves, as there will not be centralized coordination of civil society efforts by the Open Society Foundation or the RCC.
- Participation in activities will be through a process of self-selection—i.e., coalitions will be expected to design a mechanism for selecting civil society representatives to take part in various meetings—be transparent, inclusive, diverse (including Roma women and young people, for example) and have wide geographic coverage.
- The work will be driven by national agendas. The focus is on sectoral policy reforms taking place in the countries and the budget planning process—not on specific Roma integration strategies—where particular policy knowledge is required and should be secured by the coalitions.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicant organizations must fulfill the following criteria:
- The Roma Initiatives Office will provide only one grant in each of the countries covered. National coalitions are expected to develop projects that take into consideration national contexts and policy priorities, and to work within the structure of the overall aims and objectives of Roma Integration 2020. Coalitions must demonstrate a commitment to Roma inclusion and be democratic and transparent.
- Coalitions must demonstrate Roma leadership or partnership with a Roma organization on an equal footing in all phases of the project. Roma should also benefit from the policy change targeted by the project.
- Coalitions must include at least one partner with a strong track record in budgetary processes, including budget planning and monitoring of spending at the national and local levels.
- Coalitions must demonstrate that they work through broad and diverse membership bases. They are expected to demonstrate substantial involvement of Roma women and youth in project management and activities as well as geographic coverage that is as wide as possible.
- Projects must take place in the eligible countries.
How to Apply
Applications must be submitted online through a website application portal.
Eligible Countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Turkey.
For more information, please visit Civil Society Fund for Roma Integration.