Finland: Funding granted for civil society organisations’ development communication and global education projects to promote awareness of and engagement in sustainable development

NordenBladet — The Ministry for Foreign Affairs (MFA) has granted EUR 2.17 million to Finnish civil society organisations’ (CSOs) development communication and global education projects in Finland in 2021–2022. In this application round, project support was granted to 19 CSOs.Support for development communication and global education is used to finance projects carried out by Finnish CSOs. The aim is to enhance awareness and knowledge of global development questions in Finland and to encourage citizens to advance sustainable development and to participate in efforts to resolve related challenges. The support is granted from the development cooperation appropriations for Finnish CSOs’ development cooperation.

The support will be used to promote the achievement of the goals set in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Special attention is paid to target 4.7 of the SDGs, which aims to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development.

“CSOs’ development communication and global education projects in Finland strengthen the capacity to advance global justice and responsibility. The objective is to enhance people’s awareness and engagement so that everyone can promote socially, ecologically and economically sustainable development in their everyday lives and ensure that no one is left behind,” emphasises Minister for Development Cooperation and Foreign Trade Ville Skinnari.

In this year’s application round, the MFA granted support to 19 CSOs. The supported projects will focus on wide and comprehensive communications on the SDGs, on global education at different levels of the education system and in liberal education and on the promotion of responsible business conduct as part of sustainable development.

The themes of the supported projects include, for example, addressing discrimination, discussing questions related to climate change, and promoting equality, human rights and peaceful and well-functioning societies in line with the objectives and priorities of Finland’s development policy. The projects will involve collaboration with diverse target groups in different parts of Finland. The projects will be carried out in 2021–2022.In the call for applications, which ended in late 2020, the MFA received applications from 27 Finnish CSOs. The total amount of funding applied for was approximately EUR 2.8 million. The EUR 2.17 million granted is about EUR 770,000 more than was granted in the previous round in 2018. The support is granted for the organisations’ activities in 2021–2022.