As stated in Article 4.3 of the Instrument for Stability1(which constitutes its crisis preparedness component), the overall objective of the Commission is to provide support for long-term measures aimed at building and strengthening the capacity of international, regional and sub-regional organisations, state and non-state actors in relations to their efforts in:

• promoting early warning, confidence-building, mediation and reconciliation, and addressing emerging inter-community tensions;
• improving post-conflict and post-disaster recovery.

The aim is to build upon existing capacity amongst the Commission’s implementing partners worldwide, and provide innovative mechanisms to deploy the above mentioned skills in crisis situations.

The specific objectives are to:

• Strengthen the dialogue with the civil society sector, by funding Round Tables, which would allow civil society actors to proactively take the initiative in providing policy advice to the EU institutions on issues relevant to the implementation of the EU’s crisis response,
  
• Strengthen the EU institutions’ ability to anticipate and respond to situations of crisis through developing a partnership with, and between, specialised civil society actors at policy level.
  

The following priorities are envisaged:

• Facilitate relevant civil society organizations’ ability to propose the provision of policy advice to the EU institutions on issues relating to conflict prevention, crisis management and peace-building.
  

Application deadline: 14 July 2008 (first deadline) and 13 January 2009 (second deadline). More about this call for proposals