The Civil Society Resilience Strengthening Activity is a five-year initiative to help develop and strengthen the resilience of civil society. The project helps civil society to remain resilient in the face of closing civic space and perform its function as an effective watchdog, advocate, and monitor by:

• Equipping civil society with new knowledge, skills, and tools to fundraise, connect with different stakeholders, and communicate in complex operating environments;
• Fostering dialogue and creating space for civil society to participate in public policy processes;
• Bridging the gap between citizens and civil society through awareness raising, storytelling and outreach;
• Enabling the (re)emergence of civil society-government dialogue by improving existing civil society organizations’ participation mechanisms.

Activities:

• Recruit and engage 25 local civil society actors across Serbia, five in each of Serbia’s five regions, that will serve as hubs to support a network of more than 300 CSOs, movements, activists and informal initiatives throughout Serbia
• Launch comprehensive capacity-building and resiliency-building programs focused on legal awareness, business and financial acumen, constituent engagement, and sectoral cooperation and accountability for civil society organizations (CSOs)
• Establish a Rapid Response Facility to provide direct legal and technical support to CSOs and other civic actors facing sudden threats because of new legislation or government regulations.
• Organize dialogues with domestic and international funders, private sector representatives, CSOs, informal civic actors, and activists on new funding streams for civil society
• Provide technical support to the Government of Serbia on effective dialogue and consultation.
• Support or enable the emergence of multi-stakeholder dialogue and cooperation on public policy processes
• Support longer-term advocacy to strengthen the legal and regulatory framework affecting civil society

Expected results:

• Civil society organizations can respond to new and emerging civic spaces challenges
• CSOs are skilled and able to respond to shrinking civic space challenges
• The financial sustainability of CSO is improved
• Citizen support for civil society is expanded
• Cooperation within civil society is strengthened and more integrated
• Increased dialogue and meaningful cooperation between civil society and the government in policy making and implementation

• The legal enabling environment for CSO is improved
• The public image of civil society is enhanced

Project Civil Society Resilience Strengthening Activity is funded by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID/Serbia) and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).