Grant Schemes
The EU Grant Support Team provides technical assistance with the preparation, assessment, implementation, and monitoring of these grant schemes. Grant projects are awarded on a highly competitive basis, and implemented by local stakeholders, such as local communities, teaching and training facilities, civil society organisations, organisations acting in the interest of industry and employers, professional/vocational associations, but also by individual SMEs and farmers. They pursue change in various segment of development – such as cultural heritage, social inclusion, gender equality, job creation, lifelong learning, promotion of dialogue, rural development, wastewater and solid waste collection and treatment, environmental protection, promotion of the use of renewable energy or civil society capacity building. In this sense, efforts are made to modernise agriculture, introduce new standards in private sector operation, promote gender equality, attract more people into employment, help workers and companies adapt to a changing market environment, help students learn new skills and broaden their horizons and support a vibrant civil society.
In the community development sector, grant projects contribute to reducing water losses and improving wastewater collection and treatment, improving solid waste management and establishing systems for nature protection but also to supporting establishment of community-based services for vulnerable groups, such as victims of domestic violence and elderly.
In the private development sectors, the grant support aims at increasing business competitiveness and productivity by, inter alia, improving the technological innovation of enterprises, introducing quality standards and the upgrading of skills and job creation.
The wide-ranging Rural Development Sector Programme promotes the socio-economic development of rural areas, by improving the living standards and increasing competitiveness of the agricultural production.
In the civil society sector, culture of dialogue, democratisation, human rights, civic participation, and anti-discrimination actions are supported. In the human resource sector, participating schools significantly strengthen and improve their teaching programmes, whilst employability and job creation are supported through active labour market – resembling measures such as apprenticeships, on the job trainings, job survival and job specific trainings and trainings of trainers.
On-going grant schemes funded by the EU Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot Community that GST provides technical assistance for include:
- Cypriot Civil Society in Action 7th call for proposals
- Cypriot Civil Society in Action 8th call for proposals