Support to civil society - PISCCA
The Support Fund for Innovative Civil Society Projects and Stakeholder Coalitions (PISCCA) is a support instrument of the French cooperation of the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs for projects led by civil society. It aims to support innovative and pilot projects in the fields of local development, poverty alleviation and the satisfaction of basic needs for the most vulnerable populations.
The French Embassy officially launched on Thursday 20 May 2021 the first call for PISCCA projects in Zimbabwe to "Support the resilience of vulnerable populations in the face of economic and climatic challenges".
This call for projects, monitored by the Embassy’s Cooperation and Cultural Action Department (SCAC), aims to strengthen Zimbabwean civil society by supporting the implementation of projects targeting two themes:
- Women’s empowerment. Gender equality is an increasingly central issue in Zimbabwe, and is the subject of numerous initiatives and projects by European partners who have strengthened their advocacy around this issue in recent years, mainly from the perspective of health and extending to issues of civic, social and economic inclusion of women.
- The resilience of agricultural systems to climate change and food insecurity. Given the increase in food insecurity in the country, the PISCCA project supports local and associative dynamics that aim to adapt Zimbabwean agriculture to the climatic reality, with the ultimate objective of improving the living conditions of rural populations.
Since its launch in May 2021, the PISCCA Zimbabwe programme has mobilised 335 associations, of which more than 150 have benefited from training and individual support to finalise their project. In addition, the initiative has supported 19 small and medium-sized organisations for a total of USD 500,000 in grants committed until the end of 2022. The monitoring phase of the projects was launched in April 2022 and will be followed by the final evaluation of the projects in the second half of 2022.