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Regional Office FNF ESEE

1.6 Minutes
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© Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom East and Southeast Europe

More than of a century ago, most of the people living in the region of East and Southeast Europe (ESEE) – except in Turkey – were under communist rule. In a very short time, many of the region’s countries succeeded in building systems of democracy with functioning market economies. FNF supports the institutional transformation process and the promotion of the values of a free and democratic Europe. FNF is committed to the consolidation of democratic, market-oriented structures and to the strengthening of civil societies through political consultation, dialogue and education. FNF’s partners are nongovernmental organizations and citizens’ initiatives, political parties and party-affiliated organisations, human rights organizations, think-tanks, scientific and academic organizations, and others. 

The Regional Office overall covers 23 countries in East and Southeast Europe, while actively working on the ground in 17 countries. The Regional Office in Sofia coordinates the following 8 Project Offices in the region: Sofia (Bulgaria and North Macedonia), Athens (Greece), Bucharest (Romania and the Republic of Moldova), Belgrade (Western Balkans), Moscow (Russia and Central Asia), Kyiv (Ukraine and Belarus), Tbilisi (South Caucasus) and Istanbul (Turkey).

Furthermore, the office has strategic and administrative functions in regional communications and programme management, monitoring and internal reporting, auditing and financial management, coordination between countries, projects, regions and head office. The Regional Office works on a variety of initiatives and programmes, including the following.

The “Future of Freedom” Annual Consultation enables policy debate, exchange and cooperation among FNF’s partners, liberal thought leaders and multipliers since 2015. 

The “Freedom Barometer” is the only comparative index that measures political and economic freedom and the rule of law.  Please find the special 10-Year anniversary edition of Freedom Barometer, which presents a decade of measuring freedom and explores whether 2010-2019 has been a lost decade of reforms in the region.

The “FreedomTV Europe” YouTube Channel presents liberal video news and products (e.g. “FreedomGraph” infographics).

In cooperation with the European Liberal Forum, FNF organizes cross-national activities together with representatives of organized liberalism. Since 2017, FNF ESEE has supported the flagship ELF programme, the European Women’s Academy for empowerment and leadership in East and Southeast Europe, in cooperation with ALDE Party. 

For more than a quarter of a century, one of our former flagship programmes on minority inclusion and human rights  was the “Promoting Tolerance/Advancing Democracy“ programme, conducted annually from 1992 until 2018,  in cooperation with the American Jewish Committee (AJC).