Policy Centres Development Fund

INVESTING IN TRANSITION
an initiative to ensure the lessons of transition are understood, shared, and applied

Click here for brochure about the Policy Centres Development Fund

A Cross-Border Skills Partnership and Project Development Fund
The enlargement of the EU to include eight former communist countries in May 2004 has created a historic opportunity to extend to countries at an earlier stage of transition the accumulated knowledge and experience of the transition process through policy expertise, knowledge transfer, twinning, training and co-operation on cross-border projects. The experience of policy centres from Central and Eastern Europe, as civil society organisations working for democracy, the rule of law and a market economy in their own countries over the past 16 years, is invaluable for other emerging democracies ? in South-Eastern Europe, the Western NIS, Caucasus and Central Asia.
It is essential that the lessons of transition so far are analysed, and that the research and policy development carried out in Central and Eastern Europe are continued and applied, as accession to the EU does not signal the end of the need for rigorous policy analysis and civil society engagement in a policy dialogue with governments, public administration and the private sector.
From sharing the lessons (both successes and failures) of the EU accession process and harmonisation with EU legislation through cross-border co-operation and exchange, and through independent policy advice and training, and joint projects, network partnering is vital. Furthermore, the need to create sustainable policy centres is an acute one when civil society groups are facing more restrictions, and media freedoms are being eroded, in Russia, Belarus and Uzbekistan, and when democratic progress so often continues to be thwarted by embedded corrupt networks.
PASOS (Policy Association for an Open Society), a network of 26 independent public policy centres in Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia, is committed to working to ensure that the lessons of transition are analysed and understood, then shared and applied. To achieve this objective, with the initial support of LGI (the Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative of Open Society Institute-Budapest) in 2006, PASOS is inviting other prospective partners to support this initiative, the Policy Centres Development Fund.

Strengthening public policy centres
The fund will be a joint investment and undertaking of a number of donors, interested in joining together to support the advancement of policy analysis and reform in the region. Both bilateral donors, foundations and the corporate sector are invited to support this initiative.
Support for professional development and for international projects
PASOS members and other policy centres meeting the criteria of PASOS membership will be able to apply for two categories
of funding:
Professional and Institutional Development

• training and capacity-building in proposal writing, research skills, and policy writing
• project management, project evaluation, and financial management
• advocacy
• mentoring, fellowships, and twinning
• institutional strengthening.

Joint Project Development - grants to enable policy centres to prepare well-researched proposals, through funding:

• preparatory research
• project development meetings for regional initiatives between two or more centres
• international co-operation between the policy communities in different countries.

The Fund will also support Professional Development Training and Joint Project Development meetings organised by the PASOS Secretariat, designed to strengthen the professionalism of policy centres and to foster joint project development. Co-ordination in this way will bring economies of scale by enabling effective networking and meetings on a number of different projects at the same event.
LGI has pledged US$ 100,000 for 2006, the first year of the Fund.