New calls for proposals of the EEA/Norwegian NGO Fund published

Budapest, 1 September 2014. – Ökotárs (Hungarian Environmental Partnership) Foundation and its partners have launched today the third (an in this period, last) call for proposals within the EEA/Norwegian NGO Fund avaiable to civil society groups. The objective of the Fund is, as before, to strengthen civil society development and enhanced contribution to social justice, democracy and sustainable development.

Similar to the earlier calls, NGOs meeting the call’s criteria can submit applications in 7 thematic areas: (1) democracy and human rights, (2) gender and equal opportunities, (3) community and organizational development, (4) youth and children issues, (5) environment and sustainable development, (6) provision of welfare and basic services, 7) empowerment of vulnerable groups, including Roma. Grants will be awarded in medium (up to 50, 000 € per project) and micro (up to 15,000 €) categories. The application process is two-phase: first only a short project concept must be submitted through the online application for of www.norvegcivilalap.hu until the 15th of October. After the evaluation and selection of these, applicants approved for the second phase can develop their detailed project plans – fina grant results are expected in next February.

Besides providing advice through telephone and e-mail, the operators will hold information forums and project planning workshops all around the country (even in the weekends) upon the invitation of local NGO sor community groups. These events will be organized by the local groups, ensuring the participation of at least 20 potential applicant organizations. Invitations to hold forums should be sent to Autonomia Foundation until the 15th of September. The dates and locations of the events will be published ont he program website, and they will be open to everyone interested. 
Parallel to opening the new call, contracting of the NGO projects supported in the previous call are and transferring the first installment of their grants is also underway. At the same time, micro projects supported in the first call in 2013 are close to being finished (or have already), while the 2-2.5 year long macroproject, which undertook to transfer knowhow and build the capacity of smaller civic groups are at the first year of their implementation. More information about what happened in these projects and what the results are so far can be found under the Supported projects menu of the programme webpage, but also many video and picture reports are uploaded ont he NGO Fund’s Facebook profile .

The call for proposals and related documents may be found under the Application documents menu of the webpage. Further information may be requested from the operator foundation