Belgium – Other community, social and personal services – Continuous support to civil society organizations in the Turkish Cypriot community – Civic Space

The purpose of this contract is to develop the capacities of the civil society in the Turkish Cypriot community (TCc), including on the implementation of the EU funded actions, in order to strengthen their role in promoting the EU values, and in supporting the democratic change and the Cyprus settlement process. The main outcomes of this contract are as follows: • A better-informed and more inclusive society with a developed sense of co-responsibility and engagement in addressing the TCc challenges and involvement in the settlement process; • A more enabled environment and strengthened capacities for CSOs as actors of good governance, development and confidence building; • Increased impact and sustainability of the EU-funded actions in the civil society sector. The project will provide information about and facilitate civic engagement and CSOs actions through communication activities, monitoring of the civil society segment and trust-building initiatives, partnership and networking events, with a particular focus on bi-communal co-operation. The project will continue to deliver capacity building for civil society organizations through tailor-made training, mentoring, coaching, exchanges, and support for the CSOs working groups, and a helpdesk related to various areas (advocacy, fundraising, communication, strategic planning, project design, organizational management, partnership, etc.). It will implement a new phase of the in-kind support programme “Active Citizenship mechanism” to finance CSOs actions. It will provide assistance for enabling environment for civil society organizations in the TCc, for facilitating their participation in the decision-making process and co-operation with the local bodies. The contractor will provide assistance to the Contracting Authority for managing the EU calls for proposals “Cypriot Civil Society in action”. This will include all the activities related to launching the calls, evaluation of the applications, contracting the grants and monitoring their implementation. In this context the contractor will provide tailor-made capacity building for the potential applicants, unsuccessful applicants and grant beneficiaries, including active support during the implementation of the projects.