EU funds civil society’s projects

European Union delegation in Yemen conducted a seminar to present their latest scheme in supporting civil society community activities in Yemen, last Saturday. European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) offers funding projects within the civil society community contributing to the society’s welfare under The Country Based Support Scheme for the Republic of Yemen 2009 by the European Union.
 
The scheme represents EIDHR’s call for proposals for local civil society organizations and offers aids to selected projects given by the civil society community. The projects will go through a competitive selection that demonstrates the organizations’ competence. Applying is now open until May 2010.
 
The ultimate objective of the EIDHR program is to help civil society become an effective force for political reform and defense of human rights when it contributes to development and consolidation of democracy and rule of law, respect for all human rights and fundamental freedoms. Particularly, this scheme aims at supporting democracy development and strengthening civic rights. The program asserts an important feature about the projects which is independence of action, i.e. projects must not have governmental connection or consent.
 
The fundamental idea behind civil society’s projects must be strengthen their presence in exercising their rights and implementing laws. The call for proposals’ priorities is summed by strengthening the rule of law, civic rights and freedoms specifically in areas of intervention where death penalty and torture occur. In addition, a priority is given to strengthening freedom of expression/media, freedom of association and religious tolerance.
 
The proposals’ applicants have to follow regulations and policy to definite contractual procedures. The essential rule is that all public contracts funded by the EU have to respect principles of transparency, proportionality and equal treatment.
 
A primary eligibity criterion is projects must not include any kind of profit-making orientation. Plus, organizations have to be nationals of Yemen, EU or accession countries, or part of European Economic Area. They must be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action (with their partners) and they must have experience and capacity in project management in relation to the size of the project.
 
The deadline for submission of concept notes is 20th, March 2010 and deadline for submission of full proposal is May 2010, the specific date for the final submission will be given to the applicant if he was selected in the first phase. The full Guidelines are available on the following website: http://webgate.ec.europa.eu/europeaid/onlineservices/index.cfm?do=public.welcome or by sending to the European delegation in Yemen delegation-yemen@ec.europa.eu
 
Co-operation between the European Commission and Yemen began in 1978. Relations were formalized in 1984 through a Development Co-operation Agreement with North Yemen and this was extended in 1995 to cover the entire country following unification in 1990. A reinforced framework co-operation agreement focusing on commercial, development and economic issues came into force in July 1998. The agreement provides the basis for a long-term contractual commitment between the Commission and Yemen.

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