In cooperation with Pontis Foundation and with the financial support of SlovakAid, BCSDN will be lunching pilot grant scheme for CSOs and individuals. The aim of this program is to build the capacity of CSOs and young experts through offering them a grant support: to selected CSO staff in developing concrete policy documents or to young researchers and individuals interested in improving their policy skills and willing to activly participate in thier country policy-making. The pilot phase running between September 2011 and October 2012 will cover 3 countries: Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro. The products/policy documents will be in relation with the EU integration of these countries. 

The kick off meeting of the partners implementing the project, BCSDN and Pontis Foundation, took place in Skopje on the 26th and 27th of September which served as a starting point defining all the general procedures on how to implement the project and tackeling the topics that the projects might deal with. The fist call for proposals/papers should be expected by the end of October after the publication of the Progress Reports on the countries. More information on the project will available on BCSDN website soon.