Sweden has signed a cooperation agreement with the Center for Civil Liberties, a non-governmental organization which aims to promote human rights in Ukraine, for the total amount of support of 70,000 Euro for 12 months. Sweden will provide institutional support to the organization, including consultancy, mentoring, capacity enhancement and financial support to ensure that organizational, technical, influencing adaptive and financial capacities are improved to boost organization’s strategy and programmatic activities.
“I am happy to announce this support to the Center for Civil Liberties, which is a continuation of the long-standing Swedish support to important civil society organizations in Ukraine. Ukraine has a strong and independent civil society community, which in many cases has been able to establish an effective dialogue with different state actors. We know from our own experience how instrumental such cooperation is for the development of a country, and we are glad to be able to contribute to this” - said Martin Hagström, Ambassador of Sweden to Ukraine.
The overall goal of Swedish reform cooperation with Ukraine is to support EU approximation. An important part of this is a stronger, more effective and sustainable civil society in Ukraine. Sweden has already provided institutional support to such non-governmental organizations as Center UA, Center for Democracy and Rule of Law, Gurt Resource Center for NGOs, the Think Tanks Development Initiative and the Reanimation Package of Reforms civic coalition.
Center for Civil Liberties was founded in 2007 as human rights civil society organization. Its main activities include encouraging human rights-related reforms, establishing public oversight over law enforcement and rule of law bodies, documenting cases of political prosecution in the Crimea and internal war crimes in Donbas, promoting human rights values through educational activities and supporting various international solidarity programs.