OPC PAO 2023 - 2027 - OPC PAO 2023-2027 OPC PAO 2023-2027 Olof Palme International Center (OPC) together with partners implement the following eight PAO programmes with the overall objective: "Democratic and inclusive political parties with strong organisational capacity address democratic challenges and seek cooperation to drive progressive political and social change"
-Policy and organisational support programme (POSP): Southern Africa Social Democratic and Green parties, together with Green Forum (GF) as co-applicant.
The programme goal is: Political parties and movements are democratic and inclusive and have strong organisational capacities to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030), drive political and social change, and to build alliances through dialogue and cooperation with like-minded actors.
The programme which focuses on political parties is led by OPC in cooperation with GF, and OPC’s partner, the Education and Training Unit for Democracy and Development (ETU), in South Africa. Parties from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, and South Africa are included in the programme.
-Global Youth Movements, together with CIS as co-applicant.
The Global Youth Movements Programme aims to support the global political youth movements: International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY), and the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) through strengthening of the international youth federations of the social democratic and liberal families and facilitate dialogue and collaboration between them.
-PAO Latin America programme (PAOLA), together with SILC and KIC as co-applicants and MoU with Green Forum
The programme's objective is to strengthen democratic and inclusive political parties with strong organisational capacity to address democratic challenges, that seek cooperation to drive progressive political and social change, contributing to democratic development. Under this umbrella, each PAO can have a slightly different focus, depending on its progressive, liberal and Christian democrat orientation. The PAOLA programme covers 15 countries and includes 29 partners and sister parties that participate in the programme.
-PAO Western Balkans together with CIS as co-applicant
The programme objective is that Liberal and Social Democratic Sister parties in the Western Balkans represent progressive and inclusive political alternatives, and thereby strengthen the political diversity, sustainability as well as cooperation in the region.
This is done through work in the four outcome areas identified in the programme's theory of change as vital for strengthening democratic and inclusive political parties. The programme combines bilateral, national and multiparty regional activities which include political capacity strengthening for party representatives, support for inclusive and consultative policy development, and activities which contribute to cross-party and cross-border dialogue.
-MENA programme, OPC alone
The programme aims to strengthen partners’ organisation with the overall objective that: “The programme’s political parties and movements are democratic, inclusive and legitimate with strong organisational capacities to address democratic challenges, drive political and social change, and to work in strategic alliances with other like-minded movements, trade unions and CSOs.”
The programme is implemented by OPC in close cooperation with for example  the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) and its youth association Fatah Youth in Palestine. Partners are chosen as they are strategic partners in some of the most important contexts for the development of the region.
-Palme Academy programme, OPC alone
Social democratic sister parties have, through educational activities and global dialogue with like-minded parties, increased their capacities and skills on how to run and represent political parties for progressive and sustainable societal change.
In addition, OPC proposes two additional programmes. Inom ramen för strategin för särskilt demokratistöd genom svenska partianknutna organisationer (PAO) 2023-2027 har Sida beviljat medel till Olof Palmes Internationella Center, Socialdemokraternas partianknutna organisation (PAO), för en insats innehållande åtta program med det gemensamma övergripande målet: "Demokratiska och inkluderande politiska partier med stark organisatorisk kapacitet tar itu med demokratiska utmaningar och söker samarbete för att driva på progressiva politiska och sociala förändringar". Följande program ingår i OPC:s ansökan:
-Policy and organisational support programme (PSOP): Southern Africa Social Democratic and Green parties, tillsammans med Green Forum (GF) som medsökande.
Programmet som fokuserar på politiska partier leds av OPC i samarbete med GF och OPC:s partner, Education and Training Unit for Democracy and Development (ETU), i Sydafrika. Partier från Angola, Demokratiska republiken Kongo, Kenya, Madagaskar, Moçambique, Namibia, Angola och Sydafrika ingår i programmet. Programmålet är: Politiska partier och rörelser är demokratiska och inkluderande och har stark organisatorisk förmåga att nå målen för hållbar utveckling (Agenda 2030), driva politisk och social förändring och att bygga allianser genom dialog och samarbete med likasinnade aktörer.
-Global Youth Movements, tillsammans med Centerpartiets Internationella Stiftelse (CIS) som medsökande.
Global Youth Movements Programme 2023-2027 är gemensamt utvecklat av OPC och CIS. Programmet syftar till att stödja de globala politiska ungdomsrörelserna: International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) och International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) genom att stärka de internationella ungdomsförbunden för de socialdemokratiska och liberala familjerna och underlätta dialog och samarbete mellan dem.
-PAO Latin America programme (PAOLA), tillsammans med SILC och KIC som medsökande och med Green Forum via MoU (avsiktsförklaring)
Programmets mål är att stärka demokratiska och inkluderande politiska partier med stark organisatorisk kapacitet att ta itu med demokratiska utmaningar, som söker samarbete för att driva på progressiva politiska och sociala förändringar och bidra till demokratisk utveckling. Under detta paraply kan varje PAO ha lite olika fokus, beroende på dess progressiva, liberala och kristdemokratiska inriktning. PAOLA-programmet omfattar 15 länder och omfattar 29 partners och systerpartier.
-PAO Western Balkans tillsammans med CIS som medsökande.
Programmet arbetar genom politiska stiftelser för att stärka progressiva partier och rörelser på västra Balkan (Albanien, Bosnien och Hercegovina), Kosovo, Montenegro, Nordmakedonien, Serbien och regionalt genom Central East European Network for Gender Equality (CEE Gender Network).
-MENA programme, OPC
Programmet syftar till att stärka partnernas organisation med det övergripande målet att: "Programmets politiska partier och rörelser är demokratiska, inkluderande och legitima med stark organisatorisk kapacitet att ta itu med demokratiska utmaningar, driva på politiska och sociala förändringar och att arbeta i strategiska allianser med andra likasinnade rörelser, fackföreningar och civilsamhällesorganisationer."
Programmet genomförs av OPC i nära samarbete med bland annat Palestinska nationella befrielserörelsen (Fatah) och dess ungdomsförbund Fatah Youth in Palestine. Partner väljs eftersom de är strategiska partner i några av de viktigaste sammanhangen för regionens utveckling.
-Palme Academy programme, OPC
Med utgångspunkt i erfarenheterna från genomförandet av detta och andra PAO-program planerar OPC att vidareutveckla och komplettera det med nya komponenter med programmålet:
Socialdemokratiska systerpartier har genom utbildningsverksamhet och global dialog med likasinnade partier ökat sin kapacitet och kompetens om hur man driver och representerar politiska partier för progressiv och hållbar samhällsförändring.
Utöver detta finns ytterligare två program. OPC applies for the eight PAO programmes below with the overall objective: 

"Democratic and inclusive political parties with strong organisational capacity address democratic challenges and seek cooperation to drive progressive political and social change"

-Policy and organisational support programme (POSP): Southern Africa Social Democratic and Green parties, together with Green Forum (GF) as co-applicant.

The Policy and Organisational Support Programme (POSP) focuses on political parties. The programme is led by OPC in cooperation with the GF, and OPCs partner, the Education and Training Unit for Democracy and Development (ETU), in South Africa.

The programme builds on the lessons of the four-year programme period of POSP (2019-2022). It will provide an opportunity for the political parties to support and advise each other in addition to benefiting from the provided external support by OPC, GF and ETU. The programme  will also provide increased opportunities for dialogue, interaction, and collaboration. The former liberation movements in Southern Africa and the more recently developed Green parties have close ties to the Swedish Social Democratic party and the Swedish Green Party. Parties from Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Namibia, Angola, and South Africa are included in the programme. The programme goal is: Political parties and movements are democratic and inclusive and have strong organisational capacities to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030), drive political and social change, and to build alliances through dialogue and cooperation with like-minded actors.

Key target groups are the party/party leadership, party representatives, members and programme participants. Hence, the programme is mainly targeting actors within political parties.The evaluation carried out by OPC of the 2019-2022 programme period has shown that all parties identify youth inclusion, internal training, and gender equality as key areas for development.

Types of Activities: Internal capacity and systems development: The programme will continue to offer bilateral sessions and/or mentoring/coaching for sister parties individually to support the development of systems and structures that strengthens internal democracy and inclusive policy development within their parties.Regional workshops: The regional trainings for parties, with Social Democratic and/or Green parties (separate and joint), aim at raising knowledge and creating behaviour change among POSP participants on key issues in internal democracy and policy development, on how to review their own parties internal structures and policies, as well as reforms to improve them. Dialogue and alliance building meetings: This type of activity includes convening, engaging in, or facilitating meetings between actors which increase dialogue on sensitive and/or key political priorities.  Online resources and trainings: The online sessions will contribute to all outcome areas depending on the topic chosen by the partners or the sister parties. The development of more comprehensive online platforms during the previous programme period enables more training options (self-paced and user-friendly).

-Global Youth Movements, together with CIS as co-applicant.

The Global Youth Movements Programme 2023-2027 is jointly developed by OPC and CIS. The programme aims to support the global political youth movements: International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY), and the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) through strengthening of the international youth federations of the social democratic and liberal families and facilitate dialogue and collaboration between them.

The programme objective is that IUSY and IFLRY contribute to increasing youth engagement in politics, enhancing their capacity to promote democratic values and human rights, and promoting cross party dialogue.

This is done by working through four outcome areas which are in line with OPC´s theory of change for building strong democratic organisations as well as the objectives of the Sida strategy which highlights the importance of increasing the representation of youth in politics. Results within these outcome areas are reached by providing institutional support towards IFLRY and IUSY who implement political education and dialogue opportunities for their Member Organisations (MOs) and participants.

-PAO Latin America programme (PAOLA), together with SILC and KIC as co-applicants and MoU with Green Forum

The PAOLA programme is the continuity of the Latin American programme that started in 2019 as a cooperation between OPC, SILC and KIC. The overall objective of PAOLA is to contribute to a long-term positive democratic development in Latin America. The programme's objective is to strengthen democratic and inclusive political parties with strong organisational capacity to address democratic challenges, that seek cooperation to drive progressive political and social change, contributing to democratic development. Under this umbrella, each PAO can have a slightly different focus, depending on its progressive, liberal and Christian democrat orientation. The PAOLA programme covers 15 countries and includes 29 partners and sister parties that participate in the programme.

To reach the objective the programme aims at targeting four prioritised outcome areas in strengthening political parties and organisations:

-Organisational development and internal democracy; Inclusion of underrepresented groups; High qualitative policy development Dialogue; Cooperation and alliance building

The purpose of the programme activities is to strengthen the abilities of the participants and the target groups in the four outcome areas so that they can become actors that use this knowledge and skills to change and improve the way their political parties and organisations work and in their daily practice as politicians. This is achieved through training, practical exercises, concrete cooperation and coordination on matters of common interests. Another purpose is to strengthen the networks and cooperation between parties and organisations in the region and exchange experiences to learn from each other.

The main structure to implement those activities are so called political academies. These can take place with one party or organisation in one country or local community, with several parties and organisations from the same country, and regional academies with several parties and organisations from different countries. These activities are complemented with workshops, seminars, study visits, conferences, networking activities, women's leadership trainings, policy development workshops, coalition and dialogue meetings, online academies etc. The programme also organises joint activities between the three "political families", such as political seminars, developing methods and working with programme strategic development and evaluation. This plays a crucial role in preparing parties for broader alliances, reducing their prejudice about other political parties from different ideological orientations.

-PAO Western Balkans together with CIS as co-applicant

The Western Balkans Programme is jointly developed by OPC and CIS. The programme works through political foundations to strengthen progressive parties and movements in the Western Balkans (Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH), Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and regionally through the Central East European Network for Gender Equality (CEE Gender Network).

The programme objective is that Liberal and Social Democratic Sister parties in the Western Balkans represent progressive and inclusive political alternatives, and thereby strengthen the political diversity, sustainability as well as cooperation in the region.

The programme is a combination of bilateral sister-party support and multi-party initiatives on national and regional level, working within three main groups of activities: (1) Political education, (2) Policymaking, institutional and organisational development and (3) Social and political dialogue.

-MENA programme, OPC alone 

The programme aims to strengthen partners organisation with the overall objective that: The programmes political parties and movements are democratic, inclusive and legitimate with strong organisational capacities to address democratic challenges, drive political and social change, and to work in strategic alliances with other like-minded movements, trade unions and CSOs.

The programme is implemented by OPC in close cooperation with for example  the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) and its youth association Fatah Youth in Palestine. Partners are chosen as they are strategic partners in some of the most important contexts for the development of the region.

The activities are categorised in three types:

-Education seminars, workshops and trainings: Activities with the aim to stimulate learning and strengthen capacities among participants in the programmes outcome areas.

-External activities, meetings and campaigns: Practical training activities carried out by participants of the projects education seminars/workshops as part of their training.

-Seminars, conferences and networking activities: Activities to increase dialogue, exchanges of ideas and cooperation. Some are internal to highlight priority areas in the parties, others aim to stimulate relations and cooperation among different political actors.

-Palme Academy programme, OPC alone

The Palme Academy programme 2023-2027 will be implemented by OPC and is a continuation of the previous four-year programme. Building on the experiences from the implementation of this, and other PAO programmes, OPC plans to further develop and supplement it with new components.

The implementation of the programme are guided by the following programme objective:

Social democratic sister parties have, through educational activities and global dialogue with likeminded parties, increased their capacities and skills on how to run and represent political parties for progressive and sustainable societal change.

To reach this objective, the programme will work to achieve results related to four outcome areas. Leaders of the sister parties in general, and leaders with key positions in particular, are the target group central for the results aimed for, and the actors who have to change their behaviours for change to happen within their respective parties. The outcome areas are:

- Organisational Development, and Internal Democracy, -Inclusion of Underrepresented Groups, -High Qualitative Policy Development, Dialogue, -Cooperation, and Alliance Building.

OPC has a broad perspective, which implies that capacity building on an individual level also must contribute to change on an organisation level. Organisational change is central to OPCs theory of change and is, according to OPC, needed for creating change on a societal level in the long run. OPC focus on the political participation of women and youth within its operations but also to a greater extent then previously marginalised groups in general. 

 Programme, OPC alone

The new programme fully aligns with the overall theory of change of OPC PAO operations. Is new, but it is built and developed from earlier operations and many years of co-operation with relevant actors in the region. The overall objective is to contribute to the establishment of stronger social democratic partners in the countries and to create a strong network in the region to provide mutual support and exchange of ideas for policy making. The main actors targeted in this programme are parties and organisations with social democratic values. OPC will cooperate with several political parties and social democratic groups of activists from the region. A more general focus will be on youth organisations in all the countries. The actors are connected through international organisations for youth and women.

To reach the objective, the programme will work to achieve results related to four outcome areas:

Outcome area 1: Organisational Development and Internal Democracy, Outcome area 2: Inclusion of Underrepresented Groups, Outcome area 3: High Qualitative Policy Development, Outcome area 4: Dialogue, Cooperation, and Alliance Building 

The programme will be implemented through various activities and in a combination of bilateral sister-party support and multi-party initiatives on both the national and regional level. The Swedish study circle methodology will be used based on the positive experience from earlier programmes implemented in the region.

The national activities are developed by each partner based on their local context and priorities contributing to the overall outcome areas of the programme. These will include political trainings and networking events for party representatives to develop organisational structures to increase internal democracy and enhance the capacities to recruit new members. The planned activities will also strengthen the social and political dialogue with the public, civil society, minorities and other relevant actors. 

The regional activities will mainly focus on alliance building with likeminded political actors for capacity development and policy-making on topics that are relevant for all involved.

 Programme, OPC alone

This programme is a continuation of a ongoing programme. The programme aims to strengthen democratic and inclusive political parties to address democratic challenges and contribute to democratic development. The programme is predominantly carried out through different capacity-building activities and training initiatives.

The overall objective of the programme is that: participating parties are democratic and inclusive political parties with a solid organisational capacity to address democratic challenges seeking cooperation to drive progressive political and social change and contribute to democratic development.

The programme started in its current form in 2019. Still, OPC and the participating political parties have worked together in different constellations in previous programmes. The long-term partnership has proven vital and is characterised by openness, trust and mutual respect and understanding.

The objective derives from OPC:s overall ToC. The ToC focuses on political parties being transparent and democratic organisations with the operational capacities to work efficiently, prioritising and developing adequate reforms addressing real problems and driving change. Also, parties need the ability to mobilise enough support in collaboration with others to have the power to enforce progressive development. To reach this objective, the programme aims at targeting four outcome areas in strengthening political parties and organisations:

Organisational development and internal democracy

The main target group for this objective is persons related to the party organisation, as members of the board, staff and different leaders in the organisation that have the leverage to change the organisation and the way it works.

Inclusion of underrepresented groups

The main target group for this objective is young and female representatives in a leading position in the party, like the party board leaders of the youth and women's organisation, elected female and young representatives.

High qualitative policy development

The main target groups for this objective are the political leadership in the party, decision-makers and advisors in legislative and executive branches on the national and regional levels.

Dialogue, cooperation and alliance building

The target group for this objective are all participants in the programme. Building majorities and alliances is a democratic critical capacity, necessary from the smallest local entity to the national government, regional coalitions and global cooperation.

The purpose of the programme activities is to strengthen the abilities of the participants and the target groups in the four outcome areas. As a result, they can advocate for change from within their party. The programme is predominantly carried out through different capacity-building activities and training, such as:

Leadership training, Regional academies, Political school and  Policy consultations.