‘Small Grants’ PPI: Strengthening Biodiversity Conservation of Local NGOs in Central and Western African Countries

Deadline: 31 March 2019

The Small-Scale Initiatives Program (PPI), created in 2006 by the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM), and implemented by the French Committee of IUCN (IUCN France), in partnership with the IUCN Central and West Africa Program (IUCN PACO), has launched a new call for proposals “small grants” projects.

This programme’s main objective is to strengthen the contribution to biodiversity conservation of local NGOs in Central and Western African countries, and to address climate change adaptation by funding local projects.

In early 2019, the FFEM and IUCN France signed a new agreement for an extension of the fifth phase of the PPI until June 2021. Moreover, the Mava Foundation and IUCN France decided to intervene in an additional way, in new countries on the North Atlantic front of West Africa which is one of the priority regions of the Foundation.

This new call for proposals aims to fund (by FFEM and MAVA) and implement about 30 new projects in 19 countries in West and Central Africa, including Mauritania, Senegal, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone.

PPI’s objectives include:

To fund on-ground projects implemented by the civil society of Western and Central Africa that protect remarkable biodiversity (e.g.: rare and/or endemic species or ecosystems) and/or address climate change issues;
To build the civil society capacity on project development, management and monitoring and reinforce technical skills required to successfully implement these projects;
To raise the level of the civil society influence on environmental decisions and policies in their own countries, and
To facilitate the sharing of lessons learned and enable networking among grantees.

The program has 3 main pillars:

Funding of project: Selection, funding, monitoring and evaluation of local projects coordinated by the IUCN French Committee (IUCN France) ;
Building capacities of organizations: technical, organizational and institutional capacity building and networking of CSOs coordinated run by the IUCN Central and West Africa Program (IUCN-PACO) ;
Capitalization: documenting and sharing outcomes and lessons learnt with a wider audience also for the structuring of organizations.

Eligible Themes

The four eligible themes are:

Improvement of territorial governance;
Conservation of threatened species;
Management of Protected Areas (PA) and their fringes;
Combating poaching and illegal wildlife trade.

Funding Information

The maximum contribution for these small grants is € 40 000. This contribution will cover at maximum 50% of the total cost of the project (75% if only local donors) and the project duration is 15 months maximum.

Eligible Applicants

Eligible applicants for this round of small grants are African NGOs that have not previously benefited from a PPI grant, working on high biodiversity values and/or that are important for addressing climate change issues.
Note: Candidate CSOs who have not been selected in the last two PPI 5 calls (in 2017) will be able to update their proposals and submit them again.
The recipients must have:
- A recognised legal status that allows them to receive a grant;
- Confirmed on-ground experience;
- Experience in project management;
- A solid knowledge in the field relevant to the project, e.g. biodiversity conservation and/or on climate change issues.

Eligible Countries

Western Africa: Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, Benin, South and Central Burkina-Faso, extreme South of Niger.
North Atlantic Front of West Africa: Cape Verde, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone.
Central Africa: Cameroon, Republic of Central Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Gabon, Sao Tome-and-Principe, Republic of Congo.

How to Apply