Category: Donors and Partners

The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)

DONOR
The Federal Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland directs the country’s foreign policy. It also carries out programmes that support its peace, human rights and humanitarian policy and economic development collaboration.

The Federal Department of Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Switzerland supports BIRN in the following programmes and projects:

In the Balkan Region

The FDFA supports BIRN Hub’s Regional Reporting on Balkan Transitional Justice Issues project.

Web:

In Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Human Security Division of the FDFA, which has an office in Sarajevo, has supported the BIRN BiH Justice Series Programme since 2007.

The Ministry’s Human Security Division: Peace, Human Rights, Humanitarian Policy, Migration is responsible for implementing measures to promote peace and strengthen human rights in the world.

The concept of human security focuses on the safety of individual human beings and protecting people against political violence, war and acts of arbitrary violence. It is based on the recognition that peace policy, human rights policy and humanitarian policy are closely interlinked.

Web: The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Embassy to Bosnia and Herzegovina

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office of Great Britain

DONOR
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office is responsible for promoting British interests overseas and supporting British citizens and businesses around the globe.

The Conflict Pool, one of the Ministry’s funding programmes, supports activities that seek to reduce the number of people around the world whose lives are, or might be, affected by violent conflict.

The Pool funds discretionary conflict prevention, stabilisation and peacekeeping activities. It focuses on tackling threats at source in high-risk and fragile and conflict-affected countries where UK interests are most at stake and where the UK can have an impact.

Through its Conflict Pool programme, the Foreign Office supports BIRN Hub’s Regional Reporting on Transitional Justice Issues Project.

Web: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/foreign-commonwealth-office

The Open Society Foundation Albania

DONOR
The Open Society Foundation Albania (OSFA) uses monitoring and policy analysis, advocacy, litigation, and grassroots activism to help the country pursue democratization and EU integration.

The foundation works with civil society groups and government agencies to conduct analyses and produce accurate data that will help bring the country in line with EU standards for justice, public administration, anticorruption, governance, and human rights. It also plays a watchdog role by helping civil society organizations and policymakers hold government accountable to meeting its commitments for EU membership.

The foundation helps groups pursue justice by using public interest litigation to address impunity issues that are a significant concern for Albania’s democratic transition. OSFA fosters evidence-based debate by commissioning publicly available research and surveys on governance, social issues, and the economy. Its democracy and justice priorities also include developing partnerships with civil society groups and government allies. By bringing these groups together it address under acknowledged issues such as palliative care and to increase the social, political, and economic participation of marginalized communities such as Roma and people with disabilities.

OSFA funds BIRN Albania’s anti-corruption program, which aims to expose corruption and impunity, through investigative reporting and closer cooperation between journalists and civil society organizations.

The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida)

DONOR
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) is a government agency working on behalf of the Swedish parliament and government, with the mission to reduce poverty in the world. Through their work and in cooperation with others, they contribute to implementing Sweden’s Policy for Global Development (PGU).

They work in order to implement the Swedish development policy that will enable poor people to improve their lives. Another part of their mission is conducting reform cooperation with Eastern Europe, which is financed through a specific appropriation. The third part of their assignment is to distribute humanitarian aid to people in need of assistance.

Sida carries out enhanced development cooperation with a total of 33 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. The selection of cooperation countries is based on political decisions made by the Swedish government.

Sida’s mission is to allocate aid and other funding. Their operations are managed by the government’s guidelines, describing the goals for each year’s operations and the size of the development aid budget.

Three thematic priorities determine the direction of Swedish development cooperation and all interventions should relate to them. Those are democracy and human rights, environment and climate, and gender equality and women’s role in development.

In the period 2015-2019 Sida provides core support to BIRN Hub for implementing cross-regional programmes and enhancing the capacity of the Network.

Web: http://www.sida.se/English/

The Voice of America

PARTNER
The Voice of America (VOA) provides trusted and objective news and information in 45 languages to a measured weekly audience of more than 236.6 million people around the world. VOA plays an important role as an unbiased, balanced, and trusted source of information in the entire Balkans region, aiming to help fight corruption and strengthen democracy and civil society in the regional countries.

VOA and the Balkans Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) have been working together to co-produce and broadcast independent journalistic investigations that shed light on the trends and loopholes that allow the illegal enrichment of elected officials in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, and Serbia.

Web: www.voanews.com

United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

DONOR
The United States has a long history of extending a helping hand to people overseas struggling to make a better life. It is a history that both reflects the American people’s compassion and support of human dignity as well as advances U.S. foreign policy interests.

In order to support these goals, President John. F. Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development by executive order in 1961.

U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America’s interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad.

Spending less than 1 percent of the total federal budget, USAID works in over 100 countries to:

  • Promote broadly shared economic prosperity;
  • Strengthen democracy and good governance;
  • Protect human rights;
  • Improve global health,
  • Advance food security and agriculture;
  • Improve environmental sustainability;
  • Further education;
  • Help societies prevent and recover from conflicts; and
  • Provide humanitarian assistance in the wake of natural and man-made disasters.

Web: https://www.usaid.gov/

US Embassy in Albania

DONOR
The US Embassy in Tirana is the official representation of the United States in Albania. It is responsible for developing and maintaining relations between the United States and Albania.

Democracy Commission Small Grants Program

The Democracy Commission Small Grants Program supports initiatives of local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in building the social and intellectual foundations of democracy, the democratic resolution of problems and the institutionalization of open, pluralistic political processes.

The Program funds projects throughout Albania in a variety of fields, including those related to: rule of law, respect for human rights, participatory governance, women’s empowerment, dispute reconciliation, economic reform, business development, civic education, media training, environmental awareness, anti-trafficking, domestic violence, anti-corruption, etc.

Web: https://al.usembassy.gov/

Youth Initiative for Human Rights (YIHR)

PARTNER
YIHR was formed in 2003  in order to enhance youth participation in the democratisation of the society and empowerment of the rule of law through the process of facing the past and establishing new, progressive connections in the post-conflict region of the former Yugoslavia

The mission of YIHR is to protect the victims of human rights violations, establish new connections in the region among the post-war generations, and include the young in the process of transitional justice through promoting the truth about the wars in former Yugoslavia.

The Youth Initiative for Human Rights promotes truth, justice, responsibility and equality as basic values. The organisation has offices in Belgrade, Prishtina, Podgorica, Zagreb, and Sarajevo.

Web: www.yihr.org