Granturi și Finanțări

Project title: Eastern Partnership - COVID-19 Solidarity Programme

Background

About the Implementer:

The project will be implemented by a consortium built by three organizations with distinct experience and added-value, People In Need (PIN), Netherlands Helsinki Committee (NHC), and AFEW International (AFEW).

PIN, lead applicant of this project, is a Czech non-governmental organization that provides relief aid and development assistance while working to defend human rights and democratic freedom. It is one of the largest relief and development organizations in Europe and has administered projects in 37 countries over the past 20 years. People in Need has been working in Moldova since 2003, implementing projects in the field of economic development, civil society, and youth development, education, actively involved in the deinstitutionalization process and development of the Local social inclusion strategies.

NHC and AFEW are both specialized in activities to improve human rights protection for responsible persons in closed institutions and key populations at risk for public health concerns like HIV, TB, and viral hepatitis.

About the project:

As part of the European Union (EU) COVID-19 Solidarity Programme for Eastern Partnership, PIN, NHC, and AFEW joint forces to propose a set of interventions in Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, and Ukraine to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and contribute towards longer-term socio-economic resilience of vulnerable groups. To achieve this overall goal, the consortium recognises the critical role local CSOs play in service delivery, community mobilization, awareness raising, policy engagement and advocacy for the protection of human rights and civic freedoms during and in the post-pandemic environment. The action will support these key actors to achieve the overall goal via a set of interrelated activities that both aim to address the short to medium-term needs and longer-term institutional barriers to their development.

The consortium addresses the COVID-19 pandemic with a phased approach in order to most effectively respond to the disruptions on health care, the socio-economic needs, build resilience and support watchdog and media activities (Phase 1), and address structural barriers that hinder the target populations’ health, socio-economic recovery and resilience and overall reform in the respective sectors (Phase 2).

The project aims at achieving its overall goal through the following two outputs:

Output 1         CSOs have the expertise and resources to respond to the short to medium-term needs of vulnerable groups, provide continuity of services and adapt to the new COVID environment

Output 2         CSOs, watchdog initiatives and independent media are able to influence longer-term policy developments with a focus on inclusive recovery, preparedness for pandemics and socio-economic resilience of vulnerable groups

Purpose of this call for proposals:

To achieving the Outputs, the consortium intends to strengthen the service provision of the CSOs for the targeted beneficiaries. In the light of increase in number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, this becomes even more relevant to provide the necessary assistance to the targeted groups and increase their resilience to mitigate the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic in the field of economic recovery, social services, social protection and education.

Another priority is to build the capacity of the local CSOs to operate in an emergency response environment with necessary skills and resources. It will also support CSOs adapting to the COVID-19 operating environment (remote management, movement to digital mobilisation, adherence to COVID-19 humanitarian standards etc.) to both respond to the COVID-19-related health and socio-economic needs and continue their regular support to the vulnerable target groups.

PIN, as lead applicant of the project, intends to build on existing partnerships with established and experienced CSOs that work with extensive networks of field-level actors, providing them with financial support, as integral components of PIN’s CSO Capacity Building methodology.

In this regard, PIN is publishing this second call for proposals to identify CSOs to be granted to meet the immediate to mid-term health, socio-economic, and protection needs of the following target groups:

• Vulnerable households, including elderly women and men
• Micro-Small-Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and income-generating activities
• Youth.

Conditions of the grant:

• The amount of each grant will be up to 35,000 EUR for service delivery. The total available budget for this call is up to 150,000 EUR.
• The indicative activities supported through the service delivery grants will be based on the needs identified by the local CSOs and can include, but are not limited to:
  • Social Services - provision of social, psycho-social or health care
  • Economic Recovery - support to the micro and small business / income-generating activities affected by COVID, delivering skills necessary for adapting to new labour market conditions (e.g. digitalization of services), equipment to meet authorities’ COVID prevention measures, provision of start-up/prevention of lay-off capital,
  • Social Protection - addressing increased incidences of domestic violence / gender-based violence and child protection issues
  • Education - support to distance education, piloting of innovative learning methods/tools and initiatives to ensure vulnerable children do not fall behind due to school closures, lack of home-schooling opportunities
• The applicants will present their proposal by filling in the application form attached below
• The applicants should fill in the track record form attached below and submit their registration certificate
• The grant will be used to address the more immediate COVID-19 needs of the target groups with implementation of up to 12 months
• The budget must be in line with the activities described in the application form.

Ineligible costs:

The following activities are not eligible under this call:

• Infrastructural projects (constructing roads, bridges, school rehabilitation, etc)
• Purchase of land or property
• Environmentally harmful projects
• Retrospective activities (grant activities that have been completed or have commenced prior to signing the grant agreement)
• International flights
• Re-granting

Eligible costs:

• Salaries
• Nationwide field travel
• Procurement/rent of equipment (new and/or used)
• Administrative expenses including office rent, bills, telephone subscriptions etc.
• Translation services
• Promotional materials
• Bank fees.

Evaluation criteria

The proposals will be evaluated against the criteria illustrated here below:

Requirements:

• Registered as a CSO in the Republic of Moldova at least 2 years before the beginning of the project
• Relevant and proved experience of at least two years in implementing community-level initiatives
• Having a relevant and proved experience of at least two years in supporting at least one of the target groups listed above
• Being able and willing to adapt to the COVID-19 operating environment (remote management, movement to digital mobilisation, adherence to C-19 humanitarian standards, etc.)
• Having experience in cooperating with Local Public Authorities
• Proving evidences of managing funds of the budget size.

Roles and functions of CSO:

The CSO is expected to:

• Identify services and/or equipment to be funded based on the needs of their respective beneficiaries
• Participate in a mandatory training session covering several core topics before awarded of the sub-grant including:
  • PIN Policies – Training and Signing of PIN’s Code of Conduct, PSEA and Child Protection Policies
  • Sub-Grant Management – financial and administrative management of sub-grants, financial and narrative reporting procedures, EC regulations, etc
  • Basics in Humanitarian Response and Service Provision Standards - basic humanitarian standards including Sphere, IASC and CHS and adherence to Do No Harm principles
• Take part actively in the implementation of the relevant project activities and collaborate to ensure the achievement of the overall goal of the project
• Cooperate closely with the implementer (PIN) and participate in the required meeting sessions
• Timely submit the interim and final report to the implementer.

Application process

• Evidence of organization eligibility in form of a registration certificate which has been issued not later than October 2018
• To demonstrate to match the eligibility requirements, the applicant will attach the track record form for at least two years
• The applicant will fill and submit the application form and the budget template available online in English, Romanian and Russian
• All the received applications will be evaluated on the basis of the evaluation criteria specified in the application form.

Applications can be submitted in English, Romanian or Russian.

Application must be signed by the head of the applicant organisation, scanned, and sent electronically to the following email address:  concurs.moldova@peopleinneed.cz, specifying Ref. in the subject line: COVID SOLIDARITY CSO SUPPORT PROGRAMME ROUND 2

The deadline for submission of this application is 18/10/2020.

Questions regarding this call for proposals can be submitted to the email mentioned above till 05/10/2020. An info session will be held on Wednesday, October 7, at 14:00. To have access to this session, please send us an email before October 6 and we will provide a link on ZOOM where the session will take place.

*****

This material was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of People in Need Moldova and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.