Welcome to the Presidency Fund Website!

Happy New Year to each of you and we hope 2009 brings with it lots of success to all your organisations.

2008 was a busy year for the Presidency Fund. Projects that began implementation as a result of the first two Calls came to a conclusion and for the first time, the Presidency Fund was able to assess the real impact that it has made. The summaries of these Final Reports will be available shortly on this website.

The fifth and the last Call for Proposals was also issued in early 2008 and as a result of the high quality of proposals submitted to this Call, 7 organisations were invited to implement their projects- SLOGA, Slovenia, HAND, Hungary, SKOP, Malta, FOND, Romania and ECIP, Bulgaria were projects that are focused on strengthening National NGDO Platforms in these countries. We are particularly happy that Romanian and Bulgarian NGDOs could participate in this Call and happy to contribute to the growth of the NGDO Platforms there. KOPIN a Maltese NGDO also has received aid as a result of Call 5. Please click here to read the summaries of the projects being implemented by these organisations.

The Mid Term Reports of organisations implementing projects as a result of Call 2 are now available on this website. Please click here to download the Mid-Term Report Summaries of these organisations.

The Presidency Fund was created in 2005 to promote the engagement of NGOs and other civil society actors from the 10 New Member States in the European Union’s Development Policy Debates. The membership of the ten presents a unique opportunity to strengthen debate about the European Union’s role in the world and its co-operation with developing countries. Proposals are now invited from NGOs based in one of the ten member state countries that entered the European Union on 1 May 2004.

The Presidency Fund was established with the support of the Irish and Dutch Governments, both of which held the Presidency of the European Union in 2004 at the time of the accession of the ten New Member States. The German government has recently contributed an additional 250.000 euros to the Fund.

With the First Call for Proposals almost €240,000 was granted in aid to help finance the activities of 7 organisations. The implementation of these projects is nearing the closing phase. Click here to download the Mid-Term reports of these projects. The 7 proposals selected for support by the Fund were chosen from an initial 99 originally presented in response to its first Call for Proposals.

Six organisations are receiving support from the Second Call. Information about the organisations and summaries of their projects are now available on this website. The third Call also resulted in six organisations receiving aid from the Presidency Fund. Click here to read about the progress of the implementation of these projects.

The actions supported by the Presidency Fund all focus on promoting more effective engagements by NGOs in policy dialogue. The projects include establishing a Gender Watch network focusing on the EU’s co-operation with countries in the CEE/CIS regions, supporting the active involvement of NGOs from Malta, Cyprus and Slovenia around the EU’s co-operation with countries in the Mediterranean basin within the Barcelona process, promoting the involvement of Visegrad country NGOs in debates on development/trade policy coherence, and strengthening the capacity of organizations in Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Malta to engage in development policy dialogue nationally and in Europe. The Presidency Fund strongly supports the activities of National NGDO Platforms across the New Member States. The National NGDO Platforms in the following countries are presently carrying out projects with the support of the Presidency Fund: Estonia, Latvia, Hungary, Slovenia. In Cyprus the Presidency Fund had provided aid to an organisation that has taken the responsibility to bridge the geo-political divide to bring together the Cypriot NGDOs in to a network of organisations that could later form the foundations of a National Platform.

“We are pleased that with the support of the Dutch and Irish governments we are able to strengthen civil society involvement from the most recently joined countries of the EU. Civil society has a critical role to play; not only in pressing governments to meet their commitments, but also to ensure that development policy remains focused on eradicating poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals by 2015” said Simon Stocker, Managing Director of the Fund.