EEF: Engaging Citizens, Empowering Communities 2021-2025 - Engaging Citizens, Empowering Communities 2021-2025 EEF: Engagerande medborgare, bemyndigande samhällen 2021-2025 The initiative, titled “Engaging Citizens, Empowering Communities”, will contribute to the design and implementation of more inclusive public policies at national and local level and will offer better opportunities for the disadvantaged people.

In the context of this five-years project, the following groups are targeted: unemployed women and men from rural areas, women and men in informal employment, young women and men not in employment, education or training (NEET youth); women and men with disabilities; LGBT; Roma women and men; older women and men with low income. In addition, the project will pay due attention to fostering sustainability of developed civic infrastructure and mainstreaming gender equality, environmental protection, inclusion of women and men living in the Transnistrian region. Initiativet, med titeln "Engaging Citizens, Empowering Communities", kommer att bidra till utformningen och genomförandet av mer inkluderande offentlig policy på nationell och lokal nivå och kommer att erbjuda bättre möjligheter för missgynnade människor. 

Detta femåriga projekt riktar sig till följande grupper: arbetslösa kvinnor och män från landsbygden, kvinnor och män i informell sysselsättning, unga kvinnor och män utan anställning eller i utbildning (NEET-ungdom); kvinnor och män med funktionsnedsättning; HBTQ; romska kvinnor och män; äldre kvinnor och män med låg inkomst. Dessutom kommer projektet att främja hållbarheten för utvecklad medborgarinfrastruktur samt integrera jämställdhet, miljöskydd och inkludering av kvinnor och män som bor i regionen Transnistrien. Overall objective of the intervention is:
Vulnerable men and women are empowered and benefit from responsive policy-making and fulfilment of their human rights. In the context of this project, vulnerable groups are: rural population, unemployed, NEET youth, vulnerable older people, informal workers, persons with disabilities, Roma, LGBT.
 
The project is built around two impact outcomes corresponding to the two programmes of the project:
1) Vulnerable women and men enjoy civil and political rights and opportunities to exercise democratic influence.
2) Vulnerable men and women in targeted communities enjoy socio-economic rights and sustainable development opportunities.
Further the programmes will be implemented via 6 components.
Within the first component, Civil and political rights and democratic governance, three components will be conducted: 1) Civil society participation and oversight, 2) Community Journalism, 3) Free and Fair elections. Within the second component, Socio-economic rights, sustainable local development, another three components will be implemented: 1) Community mobilization, 2) Youth participation and Economic Empowerment, 3) Social Services and Economic Development.
 
All the components will build upon previously achieved results, such as:
Over 160 CSOs representing the vulnerable actively advocated for greater decisional transparency. They analysed over 80 public policies and monitored implementation of 10 public policies from the perspective of inclusion. By 2020 they managed to influence 29 policies (around 25% of targeted policies influenced to date).
CSOs that are part of the Press Council promoted pluralism and freedom of expression, and firmly demanded observance of ethical standards by Media institutions. Over 40 trained community journalists started to post articles about the issues faced in their communities.
Over 30 CSOs, united under the umbrella of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, demanded fairer and more inclusive elections, reacting to abuses or misconduct of electoral authorities, electoral contestants, law-enforcement bodies.
Around 300 representatives of under-represented groups were empowered to stand as candidates in the elections; 97 of them (44 women, 42 Roma, 11 empowered youth from Gagauzia) ran for office; 38 beneficiaries succeeded (12 Roma, 24 women, 2 youth from Gagauzia).
Over 5000 mobilised men and women in over 74 communities increasingly scrutinised the work of public authorities, demanding greater transparency and accountability along with fairer allocation of available public resources for basic social rights.
Building on these results, the project will further strive for fulfilment of civil and political rights of vulnerable women and men
 
This development paradigm will guide the EEF intervention towards the fulfilment of civil and political rights of vulnerable women and men (Impact Outcome 1):
Opportunities to exercise democratic influence will be expanded by enabling inclusive CSO platforms representing vulnerable groups to actively provide evidence-based input into design and implementation of selected public policies. Continuous CSO engagement in policy dialogue will determine national authorities to accept more recommendations during policy design but also to up-scale policy implementation.
Capitalising on the network of partners throughout the country and the developed online platform for journalists (jurnalist.md), EEF will grow a new generation of community journalists, enabling them to report issues identified in their communities (corruption, unfair distribution of resources, unemployment, discrimination, etc.). Articulation of such issues, combined with local community mobilisation efforts, will increase critical thinking and pressure on national and local authorities to discharge their obligations.
EEF and its partners will build upon the achieved results in the area of inclusive elections, advocating for political inclusion (political funding, inclusion of minorities and persons with disabilities) and strengthening the decision-making capacity of elected women, Roma, persons with disabilities. Improved legislation will determine political parties - to be more inclusive, Central Electoral Commission - to hold democratic elections and local authorities - to ensure accessibility of polling stations.
Similarly, the above-mentioned considerations will also be employed for advancing implementation of social and economic rights and Sustainable Development Goals (Impact Outcome 2):
Rights of vulnerable women and men and basic needs in targeted communities will be better addressed through local NGOs representing vulnerable groups that actively mobilize disadvantaged women and men to (i) constructively engage with duty bearers, (ii) oversee local authorities’ performance, (iii) define and addressing most stringent community needs.
The program will enable local youth CSOs to facilitate involvement of young women and men in community assessment, fundraising, outreach, grant-making. Empowered youth groups will be supported to engage in meaningful policy dialogue with local authorities in order to demand fairer distribution of available resources, increased transparency and accountability. Due attention will be paid to working with employment services and pilot innovative actions designed to better target and facilitate employment of NEET young women and men. These approaches, coupled with seed funding for youth entrepreneurship ideas will lead to increased participation and economic empowerment of the young women and men in at least 10 districts. 
Building on good practices achieved to date, EEF will empower local CSOs to engage in social service delivery and economic development targeting most vulnerable women and men. Due attention will be paid to preventing and fighting domestic and gender-based violence through local policy advocacy, legal, psychological counselling, as well economic empowerment of most vulnerable women and girls. EEF will support CSOs to develop work integration social enterprises (WISE). Additional efforts will be made to assist SMEs run by vulnerable groups to develop and reap the benefits provided by the AA/DCFTA by means of digitalisation, business assessment and support packages, matchmaking. This infrastructure will contribute to empowering vulnerable women and men to become active agents in their communities and demand from national and local authorities a more favourable environment for business and social enterprises.