ETHIOPIA: Establishing of the Civil Society Innovation Fund (CSIF) to finance diversification of Ethiopian civil society

A new proclamation on Civil Society Organizations was adopted in 2019, guaranteeing extended rights to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and a conducive environment to their development. It also removed the distinction between organizations focused on rights protection and development.

Nevertheless, its implementation has fallen behind and, although many rights organizations have emerged, international funds continue to flow to more historic and established ones.

These new organizations are a minority and their organizational, financial and technical capacities, particularly in terms of political advocacy and civic activism, remain weak. Many of them have difficulty formalizing their procedures. 

This project will provide direct support and capacity building for three consortia of Ethiopian CSOs operating in the fields of human rights, gender and the media.

The project will rely on the following CSOs to strengthen civil society rights and freedoms; Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD), Civil Society Resource Center (CSRC) and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR).

This project meets the crosscutting objective of strengthening institutional governance in Sub-Saharan Africa by promoting the rule of law, pluralism, citizen debate, and support for capacity building.

Implementation of this project will lead to:

• Strengthening the fabric of local CSOs specialized in the promotion of human rights, gender and media freedom, improving the services provided to Ethiopian citizens in these fields;
• The three consortia and the CSOs benefiting from capacity building, enabling them to play a greater role as a counterweight to the government and as facilitators of citizen participation;
• Strengthening of the CSOs ability to ensure compliance with the advances contained in the new law on civil society.