Strengthening the Civic Sector

The PROSECO project

In April 2024, we launched the European PROSECO project, which is based on the need to protect and promote the values and rights of European society. Our aim is to strengthen civil society organisations and the conditions for their functioning in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia in cooperation with partners.

In the PROSECO - Empowering Civic Space project we want to work towards a more resilient civic sector, so we will connect over 1,000 local NGOs and 50 of their umbrella networks in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia. Our project was selected under the European Commission's Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) programme, where only 16% of applicants were successful.

We started the project in Prague with a two-day meeting of partner organisations from Slovakia, Czech Republic, Croatia and Slovenia: Little Berlin, Network for the Protection of Democracy, Crosol and Peace Institute.

How will we work on strengthening the civic sector? What do we want to do during the two years of the project?

• Monitor and analyse the civic space in each country together, produce comprehensive reports on it and learn from each other.
• Strengthen cooperation, dialogue and sharing of good practices at local and European level.
• Organise strategic coordination meetings for NGO networks.
• Organise roundtables with policy-makers on their support for the rule of law, civic space and democracy in the countries involved and at EU level.

We are looking forward to working with partners and the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). We would like to thank Civitates, the Philanthropic Initiative for Democracy and Solidarity in Europe, for its support in the preparation and implementation of the project.

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The project with the full title "Empowering Ecosystems of Civil Society Organisations in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia, and Slovenia" is funded by the European Union. The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the EU and neither the EU nor EACEA is responsible for them. More information about the European CERV programme on its website here >>, information about other supported projects here >>.