General grants awarded to Finnish civil society organisations with UN links

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has awarded EUR 2 million in general grants to Finnish civil society organisations (CSOs) linked with the UN for their basic operations and for their development communications and globalisation education in 2025–2027. Grants were awarded to five CSOs.

The objective of the general grant is to raise awareness and knowledge in Finland of multilateral cooperation and of the UN and its specialised agencies and their goals and operation. The recipient organisations promote Finland’s development policy objectives through the grant-financed activity. The grants are awarded from the development cooperation appropriations for Finnish CSOs’ development cooperation.

General grants were awarded to five CSOs in this round. The selected CSOs will implement communication campaigns, produce information and learning materials and visit schools in different parts of Finland, among other activities. All expert organisations that received funding have created established and comprehensive channels for reaching different target groups in Finland.

“A rules-based international system is important for Finland as a small country. Civil society organisations play an important role in ensuring that Finns are familiar with the work of the UN and that Finland will continue to have a strong role in the UN,” says Minister for Foreign Trade and Development Ville Tavio.

The call for general grant applications ended in late 2024. The combined amount of the grant applications was about EUR 4 million. The grants awarded amounted to EUR 2 million. This is an established call for government grant applications. The previous call for applications was two years ago.

Recipients of general grants in the 2024 application round:

• UN Women Finland: EUR 620,000
• Finnish Committee for UNICEF: EUR 500,000
• UN Association of Finland: EUR 465,000
• UN Global Compact Network Finland: EUR 215,000
• Finnish Refugee Council: EUR 200,000