Our Mission

Promoting regional cooperation is a key component of the EU’s policy towards the Western Balkans. The Western Balkans Fund, an international organisation, owned by the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the region, shares the same goal and values. If you want to learn more about the Western Balkans Fund, please visit the official webpage, www.westernbalkansfund.org

In July 2021, the EU and WBF joined forces in funding together for the next 30 months a Regional Grant Scheme tailor-made to benefit the civil society and grassroots organisations in the region. The financial support to regional stakeholders is provided through the project “Support to the promotion of the Civil Society regional actions in the Western Balkans”, (CN2021/424-879), part of the IPA – Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance package.

Given the important impact of the Scheme in promoting large scale Cooperation and Reconcilliation, in November 2023, the European Commission and the Western Balkans Fund agreed to extend their cooperation with a second phase of the project (CN 2023/449-078). The new Joint Action will be implemented from January 2024 to January 2026. 

Overall objective
Overall objective of this action is to strengthen regional cooperation and participatory democracies around the WB region.

This action is threefold: a) strengthening capacities of CSO and grass-root organizations in donor founded projects; b) strengthening skills through soft capacity development programme and c) raising awareness through regional dialogue among regional actors on the importance of regional cooperation.

Purpose of the grant

The grant will contribute to the following results:

Small CSOs in the Western Balkans participate in regional cooperation projects on social, cultural, scientific, and economic topics, including with a gender dimension. 

IPA beneficiaries stay engaged in the promotion of regional cooperation, enhancing good neighbourly relations and reconciliation processes in the Western Balkans Region.

Target Groups and Final Beneficiaries

WBF’s engagement with Civil Society includes all non-state and non-profit making organisations, nonpartisan and non-violent, through which people organise to pursue shared objectives and ideals, whether political, cultural, educational, social or economic. WBF within this action aims to cooperate with civil society actors from the Western Balkans region operating from the local level, grassroots to regional levels, comprising both urban and rural organisations, including membership-based, cause-based and service-oriented CSOs. Through this action, WBF will better prepare CSOs and grass-root organisations to promote regional cooperation with the focus on enhancing people-to-people links. WBF has identified its primary target groups as follows:

• Civil Society Organizations, associations, foundations, non-for-profit organisations, regional networks;
• Local and regional public entities or associations of local and regional public entities.
• Business associations such as: business cluster, agriculture association, chamber of commerce, tourism association, etc.;
• Media associations such as: organisations working with media, journalism and freedom of expression;
• Educational institutions such as university, school, institute, library, research centre, academy of science/music/art, etc.
• Institutions of culture or sports such as museum, art gallery, theatre, library, or association of cultural institutions, sport association, etc.