Source: http://www.miadhu.com/
UNDP and the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) funded Small Grants Facility in Maldives recently awarded a total of US$79,862.95 to 13 local civil society organizations aimed for supporting the civil society development in that country. A total of 54 proposals were submitted for grant from NGO’s and CSOs across the country for this second phase of the project. The project is being implemented after the success of first phase in which nine projects were given grants.
The initiative ‘Support to Civil Society Development’ is aimed at helping to strengthen the civil society through targeted support to NGOs, particularly in the field of human rights. It aims to financially support NGO and CSO initiatives in human rights, governance, rights- based developments, gender equality and youth development.
While making the final selection of the projects, the promoters took into consideration the geographic representation and diversity of project themes. They made sure that the selected projects reflected a wide range of thematic areas including capacity building of NGOs, promotion of human rights, good governance, gender equality and the empowerment of women, youth development and policy advocacy on national and local issues.
It has also been tried to include almost all the atolls in the Maldives. Projects have been selected from 11 atolls including Baa, Raa, Haa Alif, Huvadhoo,Noonu, Thaa, Alif Alif, Lhaviyani, Addu City, Shaviyani, Male’ Atoll and Male’ City.
The project also aims at increasing the institutional and human resource capacity of civil society organizations, and in this context a four-day workshop was held at the UN Building attended by 33 NGOs from around the country.
“Civil society organizations have managed to achieve impressive results under this program, even with relatively little resources,” stated Andrew Cox, UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative. “UNDP’s main interest is to support the initiatives of these partners, to help in the much needed expansion of civil society into the public life of the country.”
