Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (USAID Nigeria Civil Society Project) Request for Applications (RFA) No. CDF-003 – North East Nigeria Initiative BACKGROUND The USAID Civil Society Project (the “project”) is a five-year project financed by USAID Nigeria and implemented through a contract with Chemonics International. The goal of the project is to strengthen good governance by increasing the capacity of civil society networks and coalitions to influence the development and implementation of key democratic reforms at local, state, and national levels. The Project explicitly aims to engage marginalized populations, including women, youth, people with disabilities, and other minorities in the process, and emphasizes leadership and innovation. The Project aims to support Nigerian “anchor” civil society organizations (CSOs) to become sectoral leaders and stewards of their advocacy issue, with each anchor supporting approximately 50 Nigerian organizations and institutions within a thematic issue cluster over the course of the program. The project has already awarded grants to seven anchors working on specific issues. This call is specifically to solicit applications from anchors and clusters interested in working on these issues in North East Nigeria only. Applications for work in other areas will not be considered as these are already addressed through existing awards. This advert is only a summary of the call for proposals. Instructions on receiving the full request for application are included below. OBJECTIVE The USAID Civil Society Project is seeking concept papers for implementation of grant activities focused on building the institutional, organizational, and technical capacity of civil society organization (CSO) coalitions, clusters and networks to advance targeted democracy and good governance initiatives. The grants will be awarded and implemented in accordance with USAID and US Government regulations governing grants under contracts and the project’s internal grant management policies. The project plans to award grants to Nigerian civil society organizations (CSOs) to strengthen civil society’s ability to influence the development and implementation of key democratic reforms at the national, state, and local levels. The objective of the grant activities is to strengthen institutional, organizational, and technical capacity of targeted CSO coalitions and networks to advocate for key issues that address transparency, accountability and good governance. ISSUE FOCUS In spite of its rich endowment with natural and human resources, the North East of Nigeria continues to be faced with many challenges to its development aspirations and portends some of the poorest development outcomes for citizens living in the region. These challenges include environmental challenges affecting production and productivity. In recent years, the rise in conflict and instability of a number of types has also affected the ability of the region to reach its development aspirations. In addition, weak transparency, accountability and good governance systems have also affected efforts to address the challenges faced by people in the region. Insurgency and counter insurgency measures have yet to yield dividends on the scale required. Human resources have been depleted by years of conflict. Civil society itself is weak and has had limited capacity and ability to provide the support to communities or create an effective force demanding accountability and transparency of those charged with delivering on development for the people living in the states that make up the North East region. Marginalized groups – women, children, young people, people with disabilities - have been especially impacted negatively by the poor development outcomes in the region. The region now faces many issues – internally displaced persons (with official estimates closing in on one million people), human rights issues, poor productivity, hunger, interrupted access to basic health, education and other services. It now presents a humanitarian challenge for the country. It is within this context that the project seeks to identify and support an anchor organization to work with a cluster or network of organizations across the region to address the range of transparency, accountability and good governance issues that can contribute to addressing the challenges faced in the North East. Applicants should indicate how they propose to address the issues identified above from a governance perspective – strengthening a network or cluster of actors to monitor existing initiatives, collaborate to address the challenges, and offer innovative approaches with strengthen citizen-state engagement and build public awareness and support for reforms. The project is not seeking service delivery solutions to the challenges. Rather it seeks initiatives that aim, through capacity building of civil society, engagement through constructive ad contextually relevant advocacy and citizen engagement, to contribute towards addressing the issues from a policy, practice and accountability perspective. Applications could take a more holistic approach or propose specific sectoral initiatives. We would particularly welcome applications that show how they propose to engage existing initiatives already working in the region. Cross-cutting integration/mainstreaming themes All applications must clearly demonstrate how issues affecting the following groups are to be mainstreamed and integrated into the work: • Women and Girls • People with Disabilities • Youth The project is looking for innovative ideas, including those that show some potential for raising public engagement using appropriate information and communications technology (ICT) and address sustainability issues. I.C.3. GEOGRAPHIC FOCUS Activities are expected to take place at both the national and north east regional level. Special attention will be given to applicants that aim to strengthen the vertical linkages between their national level coalitions/network and their local partners, primarily by cascading activities from the national to the local level and vice versa. We are also keen on applications that not only address vertical linkages but emphasize horizontal integration across a reasonable number of states in the North East geo-political zone in order to strengthen reach and impact. AWARD AND ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION The duration of any grant award under this solicitation is expected to be four years, with an estimated start date March 2015. ELIGIBLE RECIPIENTS • Applicants must be a registered Nigerian non-governmental entity civil and fiscal regulations. Unregistered Nigerian non-governmental entities will be considered if they can demonstrate a) they are in the registration process; or b) are able to meet registration requirements prior to the issuance of a formal grant agreement. • Applicants must demonstrate how they have managed a similar program of at least 1 year in duration. • Applicants must have an institutional mission that focuses on policy priorities in line with the thematic issue cluster above. • Applicants must have established demonstrated outreach capabilities within their identified coalition/network. • Applicants must complete the STARNET networking survey. • Applicants must have constituencies at national and sub-national levels. • Able to show documented impact/results of interventions and provide 3 professional references that can attest to these results. • Faith-based and community groups will receive equal opportunity for funding in accordance with the mandated guidelines laid out except for faith-based organizations whose objectives are for discriminatory and religious purposes, and whose main objective of the grant is of a religious nature. • Applicants must display sound management in the form of financial, administrative, and technical policies and procedures USAID Civil Society Project also encourages applications from new organizations who meet the above eligibility criteria. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION For the full request for application, applicants should send a request to [email protected]. Completed concept papers should be submitted in electronic form to the USAID Civil Society Project email address [email protected] and should reference RFA No. CDF-003 in the subject line. Applications must be submitted no later than 17:00 pm local time, on 30th January 2015. BIDDERS CONFERENCE The project will hold a pre-application question and answer conference on 8th January 2015 at Newton Park Hotel, Wuse Zone 4, Abuja between 10:00am and 12:30pm. This conference will allow interested applicants the chance to ask questions about the RFA. Interested parties that would like to attend this workshop must confirm their attendance by sending the participant’s name and the organization’s name to [email protected]. Maximum of 2 representatives may attend from each organization. When confirming attendance, please indicate if the person has any special needs to access the conference. No reimbursement for costs of attendance will be met. This event will start promptly.
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 10:42:09 +0000
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