Submit Proposals to Improve Access to Justice for All in Afghanistan

Deadline: 22 September 2019

The European Union (EU) is currently seeking proposals to improve access to justice for all in Afghanistan.

The specific objective(s) of this call for proposals are:

Objective 1: to improve access to justice in Afghanistan through the provision of legal aid, assistance and information to raise citizens’ awareness on their rights, and to afford them the means to have such rights enforced, including in remote and rural locations, focusing in particular on women and children as victims of crime, and victims of corruption-related crimes;
Objective 2: to empower CSOs to carry out their “watchdog function” regarding government service delivery, transparency and accountability in particular regarding the implementation of the agreed reform measures by the AGO with specific focus on the performance of the AGO’s specialized prosecution units for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW) and Anti-Corruption (AC);

Priorities

The proposed actions shall focus on either one or both specific objectives, although priority will be given to actions that foresee provision of legal aid. The actions shall propose activities that target specifically women and children victims of crimes as well as victims of crimes involving corruption, in particular small scale, and petty corruption. Actions should be implemented in as wide as possible a range of locations across Afghanistan, ideally through the use of sub-granting schemes to reach local grassroots organizations.

Funding Information

Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:

minimum amount: EUR 1 300 000
maximum amount: EUR 1 500 000

Duration

The initial planned duration of an action may neither be less than 24 months nor exceed 36 months.

Location

Actions must take place in the following country: Afghanistan

Eligibility Criteria

Lead applicant
- In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  - be a legal person and
  - be non-profit-making and
  - be civil society organizations, including non-governmental non-profit organizations and media, community-based organizations, and private sector non-profit agencies, institutions and organizations, and networks thereof at local, national, regional, and international level and
  - be established in Afghanistan or in a Member State of the European Union or an accession, potential or official EU candidate country as recognized by the EU, or in a Member State of the European Economic Area or of the OECD and
    - ‘For British applicants: Please be aware that eligibility criteria must be complied with for the entire duration of the grant. Unless sector-specific eligibility rules provide otherwise12, if the United Kingdom withdraws from the EU during the grant period without concluding an agreement with the EU ensuring in particular that British applicants continue to be eligible, applicants will cease to receive EU funding (while continuing, where possible to participate) or will be required to leave the project on the basis of Article 12.2.e of the grant agreement’.
  - be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary and
  - be operational (i.e. already managing a project and/or have an office) in Afghanistan at the moment of the launch of the Call for Proposals.
- The lead applicant may act individually or with co-applicant(s).
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.
Affiliated Entity(ies)
- 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 co-applicant(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.