As a follow up to the focus group meetings conducted by the Scottish Government in June to hear views from our members on the future of SG funding. We were delighted to host another information session on 13October 2022, in which our members got to know more about the yet to be introduced Global Citizenship Fund.
Our 34 participants got to listen to first-hand information from Gary Leslie the Deputy Team leader for the SG’s International Development Division. According to Gary the fund aims to address the funding imbalance in International development funding for countries in the Global South and to build and promote Civil Society Organisations in partner countries. The fund will target issues to do with Advocacy and Capacity Building in CSOs.
Perhaps the most exciting thing about the Global Citizenship fund is that for the first ever time in Scottish Government International Development funding. The grants will be directly available to Malawian CSOs without the need for Scottish Partners. This was an issue the came up in the focus group discussions with a lot of members feeling side-lined from funding opportunities due to lack of Scottish partners.