Crown Agents in consortium with International Alert was appointed as the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) provider to deliver their programme entitled ‘Support to Civil Society’ (SCSO) in Ukraine.

The programme ran from June 2022 – March 2024. Being a governance and accountability programme, the programme took a flexible, adaptive and scalable approach. This was to enable the FCDO to scale up its funding to Ukrainian civil society organisations to ensure an enduring voice for women and marginalised groups, as well as the Ukrainian people in general, and to support the resilience of CSOs during conflict.  The ultimate purpose was for CSOs to demonstrate more effectiveness in demanding and influencing better performance from state actors and holding state actors to account.

The programme execution used three grant windows to engage with CSOs: Emergency Grants, the Programme Recovery and Renovation Fund and Programme Resilience and Sustainability Fund.

The grants aim to meet critical support needs for the essential operation of a CSO start-up/or continuity of life-saving activities. The first grant window, for example, ensured that 94 CSOs managed to keep activities running and can provide humanitarian support to vulnerable groups and evacuate people near the front-line.

The Programme also allowed CSOs to request funding to support the restoration and reconstruction of Ukraine with a particular focus on vulnerable groups and psycho-social support. This included economic empowerment for women, advocacy efforts with local authorities, the opening of youth centres and institutions for people with disabilities, as well as job creation and additional support for national minorities.