Once, not so long ago, when the then New Unity Prime Minister Krišjānis Kariņš was flying around the world on private flights, the Attīstībai/Par! minister Juris Pūce had just resigned, the Covid-19 pandemic in Latvia was reaching ever new records, but there was more money than ever, the government nevertheless decided to find 425,000 euros from the budget’s contingency funds so that Pūce’s wife Zaiga Pūce could restore the “Co‑financing Programme” in the Society Integration Foundation (SIF). Its aim was to grant non‑governmental organisations (NGOs) the necessary co‑financing in full or in part so they could access other EU fund resources. Interestingly, this was done retroactively. Inc. investigated who received the co‑financing and for what purposes.
The SIF “Co‑financing Programme” is nothing new – it has existed with several interruptions since 2006, but specifically in 2019–2020 there was a pause. In 2021 the programme was introduced only in March, namely, only on 5 March SIF approved the programme’s regulations, later announced the call, and only on 28 May approved the projects, whose implementation period started in January 2021, i.e. half a year earlier. The conditions in the regulations are rather peculiar and even suspicious. Namely, not only does the programme’s eligible cost period start at the beginning of the year, but the maximum funding available for one project is as much as 100,000 euros out of a total of 425,000, and moreover the programme’s funding may constitute 100% of the money needed by the co‑financing recipient for project implementation, the regulations state. Interestingly, project applicants had to submit either an already signed contract with a foreign funder or a decision on the granting of funding. In effect, this means that an NGO that is applying for foreign funding already knows where it will get the co‑financing and then applies. This in turn means that the NGO already has the necessary co‑financing, but half a year later the state decides to compensate it, reopening the “Co‑financing Programme” and allocating 425,000 from contingency funds. This is also confirmed by point 4.1.2 of the regulations, which states that eligible costs may be those that have actually been incurred and genuinely paid by the project implementer.
It should be added that there are only 23 NGOs that applied for and obtained such funding, and when looking at the project descriptions it can be seen that most projects are either about promoting the European “Green Deal” or the integration of third‑country nationals, or other progressive ideas. For example, “Centre “MARTA”” in 2021 obtained co‑financing for a project whose aim is to reduce attitudes and values among young people that support violence by changing young people’s attitudes towards gender stereotypes. Meanwhile, the “Latvian Fund for Nature”, which is one of the best‑funded NGOs and is led by Vita Anda Tērauda, a party colleague of Pūce, obtained co‑financing for a project whose aim is to fight climate change, among other things by involving 600 journalists in this fight. The centre “Povidus” obtained co‑financing to create an integration evaluation system, with the resulting data used to shape integration policy and the inclusion of immigrants in society. The association “Radošās idejas” also obtained co‑financing for the project “European Integration Pact”, whose aim is to improve the quality of existing migrant integration strategies.
However, none of the above‑mentioned projects required as much funding as 100,000 euros. The closest to this threshold in 2021 was the foundation “Institute for Environmental Solutions”, which at that time obtained 74,500 euros and was then headed by Roberts Rotbergs, son of “Unity” politician Uģis Rotbergs. Shortly after the money was used, in 2022 the son of Rotbergs left the organisation’s board, according to Lursoft data. This organisation has not received SIF funding since, according to the SIF project archive.
Co‑financing has also been granted to interesting projects, for example to the association “Latvian Civic Alliance”, which obtained five thousand euros in co‑financing for an escape game. The project description states that the theme of the escape room game is a dystopian vision of the collapse of a democratic state, to show players what life would mean without democratic values and what difficulties one would face without democratic systems. This same association obtained funding to award the “Human Development Award” in four categories.
In the 2021 call, the total costs of all 20 implemented projects were 39.937 million euros. During the project monitoring phase, only 11 amendments to co‑financing agreements were made. The main reasons for amending the co‑financing agreement and for the necessary changes were an increase in costs in a sub‑item by more than 150 EUR or 20%, the inclusion of other costs in the co‑financing agreement budget, the SIF report states. This is an interesting level of flexibility, which has not been heard of in other programmes.
Coincidence or ideology?
Whether the projects are ideological or not is probably open to debate. However, there are dozens of associations in Latvia that also obtain funding from various foreign and European funds, but do not request state co‑financing retroactively.
Moreover, looking at the projects in the SIF archive, it can be seen that as ministers and priorities have changed, so have the supported projects. For example, in the call from 2014–2016, when the government was headed by Laimdota Straujuma and the Minister of Culture was Dace Melbārde, who has recently left the “National Alliance”, out of 28 supported projects only about five were related to the Green Deal, while funding was obtained by projects, for example, for prevention to limit drug use, to improve the social skills of pre‑school and primary‑school‑age children in order to reduce the risk of mutual violence, for transparency of lobbying, for recognising sexual bullying, for seniors’ travel outside the tourist season, for understanding fair taxation, for combating hate crimes, etc.
The SIF “Co‑financing Programme” is not new, though there have been interruptions. SIF began implementing this state‑budget‑funded programme in 2006, with special Cabinet of Ministers (CM) regulations, which are no longer in force. The aim of the programme was and remains noble: to increase the capacity of Latvian non‑governmental organisations to participate in project implementation by supporting the provision of co‑financing. Within the programme, any non‑governmental organisation registered in Latvia had the opportunity to apply for co‑financing in order to participate in Latvian or foreign project calls, except for calls that were fully or partly financed from the state budget, from the European Union structural funds and Cohesion Fund allocated to Latvia, or organised by SIF. The programme made it possible for Latvia to attract significant foreign fund resources intended for the NGO sector, notes Iveta Kancēna, Head of Public Relations at the Administrative and Financial Department of the Society Integration Foundation (SIF). She explains that from 2008 to 2012, 100,000 lats were planned for the implementation of the programme, but in 2008, under the impact of the crisis, the state grant was significantly reduced, as a result of which the programme was closed. Later, at the end of 2012, when the state budget for 2013 was being prepared, non‑governmental organisations proposed to restore this programme and, with the support of Saeima members, a total of 72,000 lats was allocated for this purpose. The programme was restarted and there was another interruption in 2019–2020. During that time it is also not mentioned in SIF annual reports.
How to view the links?
Ideally on a larger computer screen, but it will also work on a phone. The amounts indicated refer only to one, the SIF “Co‑financing Programme”, and it is the smallest programme of all. In total, associations obtain significantly larger funding. On the main axis of the chart, all 23 associations are shown that since 2021 have received co‑financing for foreign fund uptake under the “Co‑financing Programme”. In the upper section, the associations do not show any visible links with politicians or parties overall. Meanwhile, in the middle section those NGOs are marked that both show visible political involvement and also receive the largest amounts of funding. The points that are black are organisations and people who can be considered neutral and for whom no link with political parties can be found. However, there may be exceptions; each case is in fact individual. For example, politician Tālis Linkaits is marked with a black dot as neutral, but he has been in a political party and his current political views are unknown. However, he works in the “NGO Incubator”, which we wrote about a few days ago.
Looking at the scheme from the left side, the highest officials or institutions with the greatest power are marked furthest to the left – thus, in the furthest vertical column are the President of the State, the Prime Minister, as well as the Saeima and ministers. Further down vertically are the ministries and various councils that cooperate with officials and advise them. Closer to the centre are the decision‑makers and implementers – the SIF NGO Fund and MAF. State institutions and similar organisations are marked in purple, while funding recipients are in grey‑green.
The colours for people correspond to party corporate colours. The information was collected from public sources and archives, for example, if a person has stood in elections on a particular party’s list, but there is no information that they have left the party ranks.
Below there is a table with the co‑financing recipients and programme titles. For the projects supported in 2021, a detailed project description is provided, because that year the programme had the largest amount of funding available.
Project title and description By Axis Baltica
Originally published at https://inc-baltics.com/sif-nvo-lidzfinansejuma-programma-zalais-kurss-un-imigrantu-ieklausana-ar-valsts-naudu/
Like
Love
Happy
Haha
Sad
