The "Community Power: Improving Capacities of Civil Society Organizations in Environmental and Natural Resources Protection" project deals with low quality of the environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment procedures, as well as with insufficient capacities of stakeholders for participating in the decision-making process related to the environmental protection. This project is a part of a larger project entitled "CO-SEED: Civil Society Acts for Environmentally Sound Socio-Economic Development."
The "CO-SEED: Civil Society Acts for Environmentally Sound Socio-Economic Development" project is a three-year project started in 2016 aiming at contributing to the sustainable management of natural resources in countries where the project is being implemented. It has been seeking to accomplish this through a better legislative framework, a transparent decision-making process which involves an active group of civil society organizations, and through increasing media attention to this topic, all of which would lead to benefits for society as a whole.
The members of the project consortium are WWF Turkey, the Bird Protection and Study Society of Serbia, the Dinarica Association from Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Green Home from Montenegro and INCA from Albania, while advisory support is provided by the WWF Adria from Croatia. The project is financially supported by the European Union.
Within this project, a call for funds for civil society organizations has been announced for project proposals dedicated to strengthening the capacity, knowledge and technical competencies of civil society organizations for making contributions through public consultations on environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental impact assessment procedures. Within this competition, the Belgrade Open School has received funds for implementing the “Community Power“ project in cooperation with the FLORES Forum for Local and Regional Cooperation from Sjenica, the Environmental Association "Rzav - God Save Rzav" from Arilje and the Kolovrat Mountaineering Association from Prijepolje.
The aim of the "Community Power" project is to support the development of a sustainable and responsible environmental policy in Serbia that is in line with standards and good practices of the European Union (EU) while promoting the proactive role of more competent and strengthened civil society organizations.