Open Call to Support Civil Society and Human Rights in Syria

Deadline: 16-May-23

The European Commission has launched a call for proposals that contributes to the sustainable and equitable development of communities in Syria and to the full enjoyment of all human rights by all.

Objectives

• The specific objectives of this call for proposals are:
  • Lot 1
    • To support the development of joint actions and common spaces, which focus on leveraging community resources, building community resilience and fostering their agency;
    • To support the development of common spaces for dialogue and joint actions which devise prac tic al approaches to peacebuilding and conflict resolution;
  • Lot 2
    • To strengthen the capacity of local CSOs to engage in gender equality and youth inclusion;
  • Lot 3
    • To support and strengthen civil society organisations, democracy activists and human rights defenders working on critical human rights and democracy issues.

Priorities

• The priorities of this call for proposals are:
  • Lot 1 (related to Specific Objective 1)
    • A transition towards more sustainable approaches based on empowering CSOs to work with their communities to leverage local resources and recreate basic support for community survival and not just for individual aid is essential to help communities regain their footing. Empowerment strategies must be developed from the bottom-up, enhancing the linkages of CSOs to the communities they serve and ensuring that CSOs are creating shared spaces and networks to strengthen their collective presence and legitimacy.
    • This approach must ensure fair and equitable access to resources, based on synergies and complementarities.
    • Against this background, indicative priorities include:
      • Piloting new approaches where CSOs work with other local actors and expand the community support base for projects.
      • Piloting the creation of cross-geography value chains and collaboration on project implementation using collective resources (beyond a mere division of funding).
      • Improving monitoring and evaluation frameworks to develop clear indicators for the incorporation of community demands and the understanding of how value will be created and sustained for local communities.
      • Forging civil society alliances across geographic, social and political divides.
  • Lot 1 (related to Specific Objective 2)
    • The promotion of a peace and justice agenda requires that civil society in Syria collaborate across political divides to create common visions, practical solutions, and a local peace infrastructure. Without this basic infrastructure no peace at the track 1 is likely to provide for better governance and true rec onciliation. The role of women leaders in this regard is indispensable. They should be a key element in the integration and linkages between the track 2 and track 3 diplomacy and that of the track 1. They have already devised important entry points to the political process; supporting them further would be important to sec uring that outcomes of the political process are gender mainstreamed, but at the same time, the platforms they have already created are important peace assets that should be further expanded to help transform the conflict.
    • Against this background, indicative priorities include:
      • Support to CSO platforms which span political and ideological divides;
      • Promotion of dialogue between community representatives from different geographies;
      • Linking different peace initiatives and helping them to increase their impact on the ground;
      • Creating local capacity to sustain and monitor any political agreement that may emerge.
      • Supporting the networking of women political leaders across the political and ideological divides.
      • Linking local women leaders to formal platforms representing civil society and women in the political process.
  • Lot 2 (related to Specific Objective 3)
    • The economic, social, and humanitarian impact of the conflict was mainly felt by women and girls. They are disproportionately represented among the displaced in refugee and IDP camps, and frequently head households with limited resources and access to livelihoods. Youth, more generally, in Syria has suffered from reduced access to education among other public goods, negatively impacting their life chances.
    • Against this background, indicative priorities include:
      • Supporting capacity building and training for youth and women’s organizations, and for CSOs working specifically on youth inclusion and gender equality
      • Empowering youth and women to take on leadership roles and become agents of change in their communities
      • Supporting women networks and professional associations.
      • Promoting the economic empowerment of women and youth as a cross cutting issue in all rec overy and resilience programming.
  • Lot 3 (related to Specific Objective 4)
    • The thematic priorities under this lot are gender equality, youth empowerment and the rights of people with disabilities.
    • Added-value elements
    • The following will be considered as added-value elements:
      • The formation of partnerships amongst CSOs and grassroots organisations, building on existing networks, supporting emerging networks, and encouraging the building of coalitions and the creation of platforms.
      • Projects proposals should be based on local initiatives and genuine involvement of CSOs from Syria should be ensured at all stages.
      • Non-Syrian CSOs acting as lead applicants should demonstrate their experience in the country and added value as well as show that their action responds to a local demand and to locally identified needs and includes support to local partners (e.g. through mentoring, peer support, joint advocacy and direct financial support).

Sectors or themes

• For Lots 1 and 2: Civil Society Development
• For Lot 3: Protection and promotion of human rights

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 5,400,000. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
  • Lot 1 Civil society support: EUR 3,000,000
  • Lot 2 Gender equality and youth inclusion: EUR 1,000,000
  • Lot 3 Human rights: EUR 1,400,000
• Lots 1 and 2
  • minimum amount: EUR 300,000
  • maximum amount: EUR 500,000
• Lot 3
  • minimum amount: EUR 600,000
  • maximum amount: EUR 700,000
• Duration: For all lots, the initial planned duration of an action may not be lower than 18 months nor exceed 36 months.

Location: Actions must take place in Syria, except in limited cases where some project activities such as training activities may take place in Neighbouring countries (i.e. Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan), if duly justified.

Eligibility Criteria

• In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  • be a legal person, and
  • be non-profit-making and
  • be a civil society organisation and
  • be established in any country with no geographical requirement (no nationality restrictions apply)
  • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the coapplicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary
• Co-applicant(s)
  • Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
  • Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.
  • In addition to the categories, the following are however also eligible:
    • For Lot 3 only: entities without legal personality
    • Co-applicants must sign the mandate.
    • If awarded the grant contract, the co-applicant(s) (if any) will become beneficiary(ies) in the action (together with the coordinator)
• Affiliated Entities
• The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
• Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to coapplicant(s):
  • Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
• This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
  • Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
• Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
  • Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
  • Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
  • Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
• Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association,…) as the proposed affiliated entities.

For more information, visit EC.