On 26 June, Kosovo Women’s Network (KWN) published the Call for Applications for the twelfth round of grants within the Kosovo Women’s Fund (KWF). This round is the only one for this year and the grants to be awarded in this round are supported by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) through the KWN initiative “Promoting the Women’s Rights Initiative” in the amount of € 49,000.
KWN for this round simplified the application for support from KWF, where instead of filling in the application form, KWN members only had to describe their project-proposal by filling in the Project Fiche Form. This change was made in order to provide KWN members easier access to these funds.
KWN member organizations, for two weeks (until July 10, 2018) had the opportunity to apply with Project Fiche that will contribute to advancing women’s rights and gender equality in Kosovo. The possibility of applying for KWF funds in this round was utilized by 56 member organizations of KWN. All organizations that applied had to demonstrate through Project Fiche Forms how the organizations propose to make their contribution to the implementation of the Strategy and its objectives identified by the members within the KWN 2015 -2018 Strategy[1], advocating for the support, protection and promotion of the rights and interests of women and girls. KWF within KWN supports advocacy initiatives at local and national level that promote human rights and aim to bring long-term changes.
The KWN member organizations, even during this round, had the opportunity to apply for one of two types of KWF grants: 1) Individual Advocacy Grant for a single organization at maximum grant amount up to 4,000 € or 2) Cooperation Advocacy Grant for Change, where two organizations may apply for a joint initiative totaling up to € 8,000.
At present, 56 received applications are being commented by KWN staff, where applicant organizations have the opportunity to add missing information in order to improve forms and at the same time raise their capacity to write projects.
Subsequently, all Project Fiches will be submitted to the Grants Review Committee (GRC) for review and evaluation. The Grants Review Committee will prioritize advocacy initiatives to bring long-term changes in support, protection and promotion of women’s rights and gender equality.
Only organizations that pass the first phase of the application will have to work with KWN staff to pass the second phase of application, which includes a detailed account of their idea.
The selected KWF support initiatives are expected to be announced at the end of September 2018.

[1]KWN, 2015-2018 Strategy, Pristina: 2014, at: https://www.womensnetwork.org/documents/kwn_strategy_2015_2018_eng.pdf