Civil society plays a vital role in sustainable development, enabling people to claim their human rights, promoting human rights-based approaches, shaping policies, and providing social services. A substantial part of Swedish aid is therefore implemented in cooperation with civil society: the last few years around 40 per cent of Sida’s budget was channelled to or through CSOs, according to Sida’s annual reports. Sida provides support to civil society both with the stand-alone objective of strengthening a pluralistic, independent and human rights-based civil society and as an integrated part of support toward other development objectives. In addition, Sida and the Swedish missions abroad engage in dialogue with and support other actors, especially partner country governments, to promote an enabling environment for civil society. These guiding principles outline Sida’s engagement with and support to civil society. Read more here.
Source: Sida