Russia

Eurasia Foundation first opened a representative office in Moscow, Russia in 1993.

Between 1993 and 2004, Eurasia Foundation invested $60 million in programs with Russia through more than 3,000 grants to local NGOs. In 2004, as part of its strategy to establish partner foundations throughout the region, Eurasia Foundation, together with Madariaga European Foundation and Dynasty Foundation, set up New Eurasia Foundation (FNE) as an independent, Russian organization.

FNE implements a broad portfolio of programs, each designed to further one of two strategic program areas: enhancing social development and human capital or improving the competitiveness and innovative potential of Russia’s territories. FNE is a social development agency whose primary objectives are to assess and analyze various aspects of socio-economic development of Russian territories to design proposals, recommendations and strategies addressing territorial (regional) development problems and to implement socially meaningful projects. FNE has initiated and completed over 60 projects which have been successful in the socioeconomic development of Russia.

Programs

FNE’s most active programs in Russia include:

  • Territorial Development Program, which uses a resource-oriented approach to solve social problems, such as improving the professional qualifications of municipal and regional officials, and mobilizes innovation potential to ensure sustainable development of the regions.
  • Support of Education Program, which seeks to develop higher, postgraduate and vocational education, and make scholarships available for students of humanities, social arts and sciences who are attending universities in Great Britain.
  • Development of Migration Processes Program, which is alleviating the negative social consequences of migration and revealing its positive economic potential for the development of the Russian regions. FNE helps migrants find work and understand their rights.
  • Development of Regional Mass-Media, which supports the development of high quality independent newspapers in Russia’s regions. FNE’s Independent Print Media program trains non-governmental regional newspapers in business development and financial sustainability, and assists them with integrating new digital tools that build closer ties to their communities.
  • Special Initiatives Program, which creates conditions for social adaptation of orphans and boarding school graduates by improving their social skills, facilitating social integration and vocational training programs for young people with disabilities, and adding professional qualification programs for social workers into the curricula of regional institutions and activities of local NGOs.

Impact

  • FNE created a network of regional universities providing educational, informational, and other services to local communities. Active collaboration with local communities enables the universities to monitor the dynamics of regional labor markets, cooperate with local businesses, and improve their image and social standing.
  • FNE created and developed the Migration Barometer in the Russian Federation website which contains comprehensive information about current migration-related processes in the RF – news, analytical articles, expert opinions and interviews, and issues of migration-related magazines. The website also contains database of NGOs, which support migrants and refugees.
  • FNE established and developed the Center for Comprehensive Support of Resettlers in Krasnoyarsk, which provides legal support and consultation to migrants and immigrants and holds focus-groups to identify adaptation issues faced by immigrants and recipient communities.
  • FNE established 5 Centers for Social Cohesion in some of the most experienced NGOs in the Northern Caucasus. The centers help address social problems within their respective communities such as youth unemployment, women’s issues, protecting the rights of migrants and refugees, and relieving social tension in multi-ethnic communities using social mediators and psychologists, etc.
  • FNE launched and continues to monitor the conflictu.net web portal - the principal resource facilitating network-based collaboration and exchange of experiences and best practices in the area of conflict prevention and peace building among NGOs throughout the Northern Caucasus.
  • FNE established Russia’s first network-based non-governmental housing education institutions – "Network of Housing Education Schools" and All-Russia Union of Homeowners Associations. Informational, methodological, and educational support ensures the Network’s institutional development and improves the quality of the housing education services it provides to Russian citizens. It includes 14 non-commercial organizations from 12 regions of the Russian Federation.
  • FNE facilitated a Siberian-Urals Aluminum company (SUAL) and USAID joint initiative “Complex Territorial Development in Pilot Russian Regions,” which built a small business support infrastructure in Mikhailovsk, Severouralsk and the Nizhniye Sergi Districts of the Sverdlovsk Region, creating 542 jobs.