Act Church of Sweden 2023-2025 (CSO-strategy)

Act Church of Sweden is Church of Sweden's international department for aid and development cooperation. They are a faith- and rights-based actor that together with global alliances, local organizations, volunteers and rights holders act for sustainable development, with a focus on the rights and dignity of people in vulnerable situations. The work is based on the identity as a church. They see that faith-based actors, in a world where many define themselves as religious, are crucial to sustainable development and that they have a unique opportunity to influence norms and beliefs since formal and informal religious leaders often have great trust among the population and influence opinions and behaviours. Furthermore, they emphasize the central role of local and global civil society for just and democratic development and therefore work for a pluralistic civil society, its strengthened capacity and to protect and expand the civic space for action. Six integrated thematic areas have been prioritized based on the Church of Sweden's vision and context analysis: Theology and development, Just peace, Fair and sustainable livelihoods, Gender justice and gender equality, SRHR (Sexual and reproductive rights and health) and Resilience. In a global context, the Church of Sweden's positions on equality, gender justice and HRH are unusual for a religious institution. The programme consists of six sub-programmes: five regional and one for global policy dialogue (GPD). Each regional program has a unique strategic core based on actors, context and themes that are relevant to Act Church of Sweden and its partner organizations. Each program has its outcome and is geographically focused on four countries, except the Middle East and North Africa region which focuses on seven countries. They are centred around capacity building, collaboration and advocacy. The GPD focuses on five issues, which are related to the outcomes of the regional programmes. Sida signs an agreement with the Church of Sweden. Act The Church of Sweden coordinates, plans and develops programmes, commitments and financing. Act Svenska and partners sign cooperation agreement. Most partnership agreements are for five years and without financial commitments. If a partner organization is approved project-, program- or core support, Act the Church of Sweden signs a sub-agreement for one to three years of funding. Many initiatives that are forwarded to are co-financed with other donors. For the forwarding of funds to the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), an overall agreement is signed with the secretariat in Geneva. The terms of the agreement are passed on when the secretariat signs an agreement with LWF's country offices, as well as if the country offices forward funds to local partners. Act The Church of Sweden has many years of experience in working for democracy and rights together with partners in civil society. Sida assesses that Act Church of Sweden has required routines, competence and resources to manage forwarding of funds and the size of the programme and has the capacity to achieve the expected results. The programme is based on lessons learned from previous collaboration and consider conclusions in actualized analyses of the context such as climate change, shrinking democratic space and growing opposition to gender equality and SRHR. The main changes compared to the programme of the years 2018-2022, in addition to updated context analysis and related adaptations, are above all a revised programme structure. Among other things, the new programmes shall be a framework for all Act Swedish Church's working areas at all levels and together and mutually strengthen activities within their four strategic working methods. There will also be a transformation in power and resources to partner organizations by strengthening their ownership.