Structural Funds: Making a difference to tackle exclusion
Since the 90s, EAPN has been involved in lobbying the EU institutions to promote a legal framework for Structural Funds, which places the fight against poverty and social exclusion at its core. EAPN National Networks and European Organisations worked closely to for a stronger NGO involvement in the Structural Funds process, at national and European level, and to provide timely information for a better access of NGOs to all stages of Structural Funds.
The 3 main activities of EAPN in the field of Cohesion Policy can be summed up as following:
- To inform and raise awareness on the new developments on SF for ensuring a proper engagement of EAPN National Networks in Structural Funds at national level. For more information, see here.
- To organise capacity-building/ share of expertise to make access to Structural Funds easier for NGOs. For more information, please ask the secretariat.
- To influence and help EAPN National Networks influencing the Structural Funds’ processes both at national and EU level (from the design to the monitoring). For more information, see here.
EAPN together with 19 other social NGOs is ran in 2012-2013 the joint campaign EU Money for Poverty Reduction, NOW!
Key documents
- EAPN report assessing how the Partnership Principle is applied in the Partnership Agreements and Operational Programmes, ie how social NGOs have been actively involved in their drafting of these programming documents, which are key tools for implementing the new Structural Funds (2014-2020), December 2013
- EAPN Mag n°137 – 2012, Poverty Reduction: Will Member States break their Promises? The contribution of Structural Funds to poverty reduction at risk, December 2012
- EAPN Toolkit on Structural Funds for Social NGOS – Pushing for the poverty reduction target to be reflected in Operational Programmes (OPs) and Partnership Contracts (PCs) at national and regional levels, October 2012
- EAPN Response to the Commission’s legislative package for the EU Cohesion Policy 2014-2020 , January 2012
- A Response to the Fifth Report on Economic, Social and Territorial Cohesion of the European Commission (EN/IT), January 2011
- The contribution of Cohesion Policy to social inclusion - What role for social NGOs? EAPN mid-term assessment of the current programming period and perspective for post-2013 (EN/FR), October 2009
- EAPN Structural Funds Manual 2009-2011 (EN/FR), December 2008
- Developing social inclusion indicators for the structural funds - EAPN Guide for social inclusion NGOs and other Monitoring Committee members (EN/FR), January 2008