Western Balkans Fund

2️⃣4️⃣ 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐑𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

🧩 After a long and highly competitive evaluation process, launched back in April, we are pleased to announce the winners of the Grant for Grassroots Initiatives Grant Scheme.

👉 The 24 winning projects were selected among 264 applications submitted from across the Western Balkans, making this one of the most competitive and diverse grant schemes implemented by WBF to date.

Full list with details is published on the official website

🇪🇺 The GGI Grants are co-funded by the European Union, through IPA III – Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, under the Civil Society Facility and Media Programme for the Western Balkans and Türkiye.

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📌 A reminder: the Western Balkans Partnership Hub is always here for you.

Whether you're starting a new cross-border project or keeping an eye on what's open, everything you need lives in one place:

🤝 Find Partners l Connect with the right collaborators for your regional WBF project

💶 Find Grants l Explore open funding for cooperation, development, and integration

Register now👉 wbfpartnership.com

⏳ 1 week left to apply

The Call for Participants for the first Regional Academy on Dialogue and Culture of Cooperation is closing soon, don't miss your chance to apply.

If you're a junior professional or emerging leader from the WB6 region, aged 25–40, this is your platform for regional dialogue, cooperation, and leadership.
Key details

📍 Tirana, Albania
📅 13–20 September 2026
✅ Participation fully covered

Register now via the link on the WBF website.

The We-Be Regional Academy is organised and implemented by the Western Balkans Fund and funded by the Open Society Foundation Western Balkans.

🧩30 grants
🧩120 partner organizations
🧩Thousands of beneficiaries.

👉The 7th Call for Proposals, co-funded by the European Union, made a real difference across the Region promoting cooperation and people-to-people links at a wide scale.

⏳As we take a moment to celebrate these achievements, we are excited to share what comes next: we are about to announce the winners of our new EU co-funded Call, the Grant for Grassroots Initiatives (GGI).

🇪🇺 The GGI Grants are co-funded by the European Union through IPA III – the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance, under the Civil Society Facility and Media Programme for the Western Balkans and Türkiye.

Stay tuned, the new Champions of Regional Cooperation are coming soon.

🧩 An active day for the Western Balkans Fund in Belgrade today.

👏 We were pleased to meet with the Norwegian 🇳🇴 Ambassador, H.E. Kristin Melsom, and her staff to explore ways of advancing regional cooperation.

👉 The WBF team was honoured to be accompanied by the Montenegrin 🇲🇪 Ambassador to Belgrade, H.E. Nebojša Đoković.

WBF and Norway share common interests, common values and a common vision for the future of the Region, and we would be excited to expand our cooperation further for the benefit of all our citizens.

👉 Across the Western Balkans, heritage is not found only in museums, archives and major historical centres. It also lives in small villages, along mountain roads, in rural landscapes and quiet localities that still carry the memory of past centuries.

🟢 One of the most remarkable examples of this shared heritage are the stećci: medieval tombstones dating from the 12th to the 16th century, scattered across Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and Croatia. Carved mostly from limestone and often decorated with symbols, inscriptions and scenes from everyday life, they are among the most distinctive cultural traces of medieval Southeast Europe.

28 stećak sites are already recognised by UNESCO as World Heritage, and the best known among them draw visitors from across the region and beyond each year. But these are only a fraction of the whole.

🇪🇺 With the support of the WBF–EU Joint Action, the Mak Dizdar Foundation developed last year the Stećak.Map to bring this heritage closer to the public, and, in particular, closer to young people.

We revisit this interactive tool, to see how it has contributed to change the way on how a stećak site can become far more than a stop on a map. It can be part of a cultural itinerary, a hiking route, a rural tourism experience, an educational visit, or a regional heritage trail linking communities across borders

Learn more, visit 👇🏼👇🏼👇🏼

One year of Stećak.Map: Rediscovering a Shared Balkan Legacy Across the Western Balkans, heritage is not found only in museums, archives and major historical centres. It also lives in small villages, along mountain roads, in rural landscapes and quiet localities that still carry the memory of past centuries. One of the most remarkable examples of this shared....

🤝 Welcome to the WBF team, Mimoza!

👉 We're delighted to welcome Mimoza Gavrani as our new Program Coordinator.
Mimoza brings nearly two decades of experience in governance, rule of law, human rights, and EU accession across the Western Balkans, pairing strategic programme leadership with deep political and policy analysis.

🟢 A CEU alumni with executive education from Harvard Kennedy School, she has led large-scale, multi-country initiatives funded by the European Commission, GIZ, and the German Government, and is a recognized voice on EU accession pathway, rule of law reform and anti-corruption efforts.

🎉 We're excited to have her strategic thinking and analytical depth on board. Welcome, Mimoza!

5️⃣1️⃣ 𝐅𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐬 approved
3️⃣1️⃣ 𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 accross the Western Balkans and the V4 Region
1️⃣6️⃣4️⃣ 𝐰𝐞𝐞𝐤𝐬 of Fellowship in total

Today, we are happy to inform that the results of the 3rd edition of the Western Balkans–Visegrad Fellowship are official.

Following a careful evaluation process, 51 fellows were selected, marking a clear increase from the 41 and 44 fellows awarded in the first two editions.

👉 The Western Balkans–Visegrad Fellowship is jointly operated by the Western Balkans Fund and the International Visegrad Fund.

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𝐀𝐩𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟏𝐬𝐭 𝐆𝐞𝐅𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐧 𝐂𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐜𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐝. 🌐

🙏Thank you to every organisation across the Western Balkans that answered the call.

👉 From civil society to academia, culture, business and media — the response from the region reaffirms a shared commitment to advancing gender equality through regional cooperation.

What happens next: All eligible applications now move into the evaluation phase, assessed by the Western Balkans Fund together with external assessors against the published criteria. Successful applicants will be notified directly, and the selected projects will be announced publicly in July 2026.

🤝 The work continues — six priorities, one mission, six Contracting Parties moving forward together.

🔗 More on GeFund: gefund.westernbalkansfund.org

Co-funded by the Swiss Agency for Development 🇨🇭 & Cooperation and the European Union 🇪🇺

🤝 Today in Sofia 🇧🇬, the Western Balkans Fund participated in the 18th Annual Meeting of the Regional Cooperation Council, co-chaired by the Bulgarian Chairmanship-in-Office of the SEECP.

👉From Montenegro 🇲🇪 last week to Bulgaria today, one message has been clearly reaffirmed: Regional organisations matter more than ever.

👉 We fully share the view expressed by RCC Secretary General Amer Kapetanović: “Our focus now must be on implementation, results and investment; on regional initiatives that make cooperation visible and useful to citizens, businesses and institutions”.

🟢 Through grants, partnerships, mobility, youth cooperation, gender equality initiatives and support for civil society, we remain committed to making regional cooperation visible, concrete and meaningful across the Western Balkans.