Moldova Citizen Participation Program (CPP)

Program Overview

Over the past five years, the USAID-funded Moldova Citizen Participation Program (CPP) has supported more than 280 communities across Moldova in addressing their development priorities through participatory and collaborative processes. Due to the program’s great success, USAID has awarded IREX an 18-month extension to expand its work to 20 additional communities, in regions previously untouched by CCP.

The current extension opens up new opportunities for IREX and local NGO Ferestra Spre Lume to provide training, mentoring, and funding for 20 citizen-initiated projects to achieve the following objectives:

mobilizing citizens to develop strategies for solving community problems;
supporting community leaders to mobilize local resources for community benefit;
enabling communities to implement and sustain improvement projects; and
encouraging habits of transparency and democracy.

PROJECT RESULTS

210 Community Improvement Projects funded and completed
76 Civil Society Projects funded
Over 16,700 citizens participated in Civic Education Trainings
Over 1,700 citizens were elected to Community Initiative Groups

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

Grassroots Mobilization by Citizen Initiative Groups: Citizens mobilize to identify and implement projects that address local development needs by promoting community collaboration. IREX provides training in community mobilization, participatory processes, and project design and management.
Community Advocacy: IREX uses a variety of advocacy training models – cooperative (‘soft’) and classic advocacy, social marketing, and media – to develop the capacity of Citizen Initiative Groups. Specific advocacy issues such as transportation routes, budget transparency, or social service provision will be addressed with assistance from IREX.
Partnership Development: IREX works with local partners and institutions to build public-private partnerships between local government, business, NGOs, and citizen groups in order to leverage resources and ensure transparency.
Citizen Participation Grants:CPP funds projects initiated, designed, implemented, and monitored by Citizen Initiative Groups.