The European Union successfully completes its 3rd round of support to the Civil Societies in Ethiopia.

The EU-supported Civil Society Fund (CSF) which started in 2006 was implemented up to the end of 2018 in two phases. Following the successful implementation and lessons learnt from these previous interventions, a third phase of the Civil Society Fund (CSF-III) started implementation in December 2018.

As Biruk Habtamu, Technical Manager of the European Union’s Civil Service Fund program informed Capital, “Works that solve community problems have been implemented in the last 4 years and have been more than 80 percent successful.”

At the closing program held on October 11, 2023, sixty seven different civil societies participated in the 3rd fund which aims to encourage the sustainability of civil societies, including groups working on women’s equality and empowerment, as well as projects that have brought change in the lives of the disabled and society.

At its core, the EU has been supporting the civil society sector in Ethiopia in pursuit of its conviction that a genuinely independent, pluralistic and vibrant civil society is central to a country’s development and stability, to ensuring democracy and human rights, building inclusive societies and in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).