Civil Society Facility Programme

Under Civil Society Facility Program ASB started implementation of the project „Improving the provision of Social Service Delivery in South Eastern Europe through the empowerment of national and regional CSO networks”. This program supports activities that are carried out in partnership between civil society organizations from across the Western Balkan region and from EU Member States in order to develop net- works and promote transfer of knowledge and experience. ASB team developed partnership network with five local organizations: LIR Civil Society from Banja Luka; OGI from Osijek; CLARD from Pristina; SOS from Podgorica; and Educational Centre from Leskovac. The partners from Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia are supported through the SOLIDAR network. The project is jointly developed to provide different types of assistance to civil society organizations that provide different type of social services in Western Balkan. “Tailor-made” capacity building for CSOs in organisational management and advocacy and provision of small grants for grass-root social service providers are project activities that will benefit significant number of organisations in these countries.

Activities include the development of study related to comparative analysis of legal and institutional framework for provision of social services through civil society sector; organisation of public hearings; round tables on burning issues in social policy development in the region; development of specialised web portal from communication among stakeholders in social welfare; and e-learning curriculum for improving knowledge and skills. These projects are multidimensional and relevant for current situation in development of social welfare in the region.

ASB, together with SOLIDAR and its members, have an important role in transferring social services best practices from the European Union in order to support civil society organisations from Western Balkan. This will provide high level of quality in performance of social services to vulnerable members of communities (people with disability, children and youth at risk, women victims of family violence, refugees, asylum seekers and other vulnerable citizen groups). Since project is contracted for two years, with possibility of extending for another two years, this regional team (supported and coordinated by ASB) has great chance to improve social services through civil society organisation and influence important development process for policies related to social welfare in the Western Balkan.