The Open Society Institute (OSI), renamed in 2011 to Open Society Foundations, is a private operating and grantmaking foundation started by George Soros, aimed to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human rights, and economic, legal, and social reform. On a local level, OSF implements a range of initiatives to support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media. At the same time, OSF works to build alliances across borders and continents on issues such as combating corruption and rights abuses.
One of the aims of the OSF is the development of civil society organizations (e.g., charities, community groups and trade unions) to encourage participation in democracy and society.
Open Society Institute was created in 1993 by investor George Soros to support his foundations in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. On May 28, 1984 Soros signed the contract between the Soros Foundation (New York) and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the founding document of the Soros Foundation Budapest.[1]This was followed by several foundations in the region to help countries move away from communism. In August 2010, Open Society Initiative changed its name to Open Society Foundations to better reflect its role as funder for civil society groups around the world. OSF has expanded the activities of the Soros Foundations network to other areas of the world where the transition to democracy is of particular concern. The Soros Foundations network has nodes in more than 60 countries, including the United States. OSF projects include the National Security and Human Rights Campaign that opposes detention of unprivileged combatants and the Lindesmith Center and others dealing with drug reform.
Related initiatives include the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) and the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA). Recent efforts have included those that have met with controversy, including an effort in East Africa aimed at spreading human rights awareness among prostitutes in Uganda and other East African nations, which was not received well by the Ugandan authorities, who considered it an effort to legalize and legitimize prostitution.[2] Other initiatives includes: AfriMAP; Arts & Culture Program; Americas Quarterly; Burma Project/Southeast Asia Initiative; Central Eurasia Project; Central Eurasia Project; Closing the Addiction Treatment Gap; Documentary Photography Project; Soros Documentary Fund (SDF);[3] Early Childhood Program; East East Program: Partnership Beyond Borders; Education Support Program; EUMAP; Global Drug Policy Program; Information Program; International Higher Education Support Program; Latin America Program; Local Government & Public Service Reform Initiative; Media Program; Middle East & North Africa Initiative; Open Society Fellowship; OSI-Baltimore; OSI-Brussels; OSI-Washington, D.C.; Public Health Program; Roma Initiatives; Scholarship Programs; Special Initiatives; Think Tank Fund[4]; Turkmenistan Project; U.S. Programs; International Women’s Program; the Youth Initiative[5]; the International Migration Initiative; Policy Matters Ohio and the Open Society Justice Initiative.
According to the 2009 OSF expenditures report[6], Africa region (outside of the South Africa) was the key area of funded activities: about $51,000,000 were spent on civil society support, human rights, education, justice, media, public health, transparency, and other activities there.
Among other regions, activities in five counties received the most funding (excluding funds provided by non-OSI parties): Ukraine ($8.47M; mostly in civil society support, human rights, public health), South Africa ($7.23M; human rights, civil society, information and media and other), Russia ($6,29M; almost solely civil society support), Serbia ($5,04M; mostly civil society, education and youth, human rights, transparency), Georgia ($4.84M; media, human rights, civil society, administration, transparency, public health and other).
6 out of 10 countries with most activities of the Institute in 2009 are post-Soviet states. Another 3 are situated Eastern Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Society_Institute
DOWNLOAD THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT HERE
Bernd Pulch 
You must be logged in to post a comment.