Big news from the Eastern Partnership area, as both the AGREED and Media Dialogue projects are deep in the works with very exciting initiatives!
Under ALDA management and thanks to the co-financing of the European Union, the sub-grants scheme of the “Activating Governance Reform for Enhancing Development” (AGREED) project was launched on April 12th this year with the deadline for proposal submissions of May 15th.
ALDA received 123 project proposals from all districts of Moldova, a number the ALDA team was extremely positively surprised by, especially considering the high quality of the applications. This month, the Evaluation Committee completed its selection according to the criteria that were published together with the call for proposals and, consequently, the projects proposed by the following 17 organisations were approved for up to 6000 euros each in funding:
1. Public Association “Regional Centre for Sustainable Development”, Ungheni
2. Public Association “Destin”, Schineni, Soroca
3. Public Association “Development and Involvement”, Cimislia
4. Public Association “Ilenuța”, Cotova, Drochia
5. Public Association “Floresti District Coulcil of Youth”, Floresti
6. Public Association “DOR DE CASA”, Criva, Briceni
7. Public Association “Mugurasii de la Bic”, Gura Bacului, Anenii Noi
8. Public Association “Ecological Movememt Stefan Voda”, Stefan Voda
9. Public Association “PRO Community Assistance and Develpment”, Ciolacu Nou, Falesti
10. Public Association “Pro-Europa”, Comrat
11. Public Association “PROSPECT”, Cimislia
12. Public Association “Silent Generation”, Balti
13. Public Association “For SURUCENENI”, Suruceni, Ialoveni
14. Public Association “We – The bright future”, Falesti
15. Public Association “MALURILE NISTRULUI”, Cosnita, Dubasari
16. The Association of Natives of Telenesti “Brotherhood of Telenesti Everywhere”, Telenesti
17. The Association of Natives “CIUCIULEA-VATRA DE DOR”, Ciuciulea, Glodeni.
Project implementation is now scheduled to start on June 25th and last for a maximum of 6 months. ALDA and the AGREED consortium are highly pleased with the enthusiasm shown by Moldovan civil society; and a similarly successful grant competition is in progress in Kyrgyzstan, too, in the framework the Media Dialogue project!
As of December 2019, in fact, ALDA and 4 other partners kicked off the Media Dialogue project in Kyrgyzstan and, after a series of preparatory activities, officially launched it in March 2020 in Bishkek with a large presence of stakeholders. Project activities aim to improve the policy and legal environment affecting the media sector and to assist media houses, journalists and editors in upholding professional journalistic standards and acting as democratic watchdogs during the 2020 electoral cycle.
With this in mind, back in April a grant competition was launched to (1) strengthen the media environment in Kyrgyzstan, (2) support the provision of public high-quality journalism and (3) promote media policy reform. More specifically, the call for proposals looked for ways to support media institutions in delivering advocacy campaigns to raise public awareness of the need to maintain and promote freedom of expression, high-quality journalism, contents of public service, access to information and other constituents of a free and democratic media environment.
By the given deadline of May 10th, the Media Dialogue team had received 27 applications from Kyrgyz media outlets and media organisations, out of which 4 proposals were pre-selected for support by the selection committee and are currently in the negotiation and preparation phase for grants agreements. Each organisation will receive up to 30,000 euro, thus meaning that, as of July 2020, ALDA will be supporting 4 media organisations from Kyrgyzstan to increase public access to information, transparency of state institutions and better access to diversified information for vulnerable groups.
We are extremely proud of how far both projects have already come and are looking forward to seeing what’s next!
AGREED is a 2-year project which aims at strengthening the capacity of Moldovan local authorities to perform a transparent and participatory governance in their communities, with a specific reference to the policy-making process related to the local decentralisation reform.
Media Dialogue is an 18-month EU-funded project based in Kyrgyzstan which wishes to strengthen the capacity and responsibility of media actors to operate as drivers of democracy and to prevent potential conflicts during the October 2020 parliamentary elections.