Call for Proposals: Empowering Kenyan Youth, Civil Society and independent Media Organisations

Deadline: 07-Jun-24
The European Commission (EC) has announced a call for proposals is to strengthen the capacity and voice of Kenyan civil society and human rights organisations as independent actors of accountability and governance through deepening their participation in national and/or sub-national policy and democratic reforms discussions in the main areas of EU-Kenya partnership.

Objectives of the Programme and Priority Issues 

• The specific objective(s) of this call for proposals are defined in the 3 following lots:
  • Lot 1: Engaging, empowering and connecting Kenyan youth
    • Based on the objectives of the Youth Action Plan in EU external action, this first lot will support meaningful youth participation, empowerment and leadership in the twin green and digital transitions. While ensuring youth-led activities and well-elaborated mainstreaming of disability, minority and gender in all activities and targeting of both rural and urban locations, the action under this lot will support initiatives that seek to foster youth empowerment and leadership development, including political empowerment, through:
      • Equip young people with knowledge, leadership and interpersonal abilities and support decent youth employment and entrepreneurship in the green and digital economy;
      • Enhancing youth participation in policy design, decision-making, political and social dialogue at national and local levels, with a view to amplify youth voices on social inclusion, social accountability and to contribute to a more youth-friendly investment and business environments;
      • Support youth organisations in enhancing knowledge on and engaging in social entrepreneurship activities with a view to expand access to inclusive employment and income generation opportunities for youth in viable business areas and expand their access to sustainable funding.
    • All activities must be youth-led, and indicatively, proposed activities may include:
      • mapping and capacity assessments of youth-led organisations, resources/resource persons, initiatives, policy and decision-making spaces, best practices, success stories and other relevant, reliable data of relevance to support evidence-based activities including in the green and digital transition sectors;
      • mapping and identification of non-formal and formal education and training gaps to be bridged to enable youth to understand local and national development and investment initiatives including in the green and digital transition sectors their potential impact for them and other community members, including in enhancing education, job and income opportunities for youth;
      • mapping of fundamental rights, duty-bearer responsibilities, opportunities and risks for fostering more inclusive and youth-informed political participation, policy- and decision-making including in the green and digital transition sectors at local and national level in Kenya;
      • assessment of mandatory and voluntary social and environmental impact assessment tools used in the green and digital transition sectors in Kenya and make recommendations to promote and strengthen people centred and particularly youth-sensitive approaches in these and other sectors;
      • explore and identify youth centred priority investments for Kenya to excel in the green and digital transition sectors;
      • prepare and disseminate youth centred information products to increase youth awareness of the importance of their local and national political participation including in the green and digital transition priorities in Kenya and beyond, as well as untapped development potentials in Kenya;
  • Lot 2: Accountability of trade and the business sector
    • The specific objective of this lot is to support civil society in promoting accountability in business and trade in Kenya, with an emphasis on the Guiding principles on Business and Human rights, and related EU legislation on human rights and environmental due diligence in Kenya, notably by:
      • Enhancing the oversight role of civil society and social partners in promoting business accountability and anti-bribery initiatives, as well as monitoring, preventing and responding to human rights violations and abuses, including abuses of labour rights;
      • Facilitating access to remedies for aggrieved parties by resourcing local civil society organisations and social partners to investigate corporate human rights violations and abuses and engage in collective redress;
      • Promoting dialogue, reporting and experience-sharing between corporate actors, civil society and human rights organisations, governments, including EU institutions, about the implementation of human rights, social accountability and environmental due diligence including access to remedies.
    • Indicatively, proposed activities may include:
      • data collection with a view to provide evidence on the business and human rights situation in Kenya, including in specific urban and rural geographical locations and productive sectors;
      • facilitate private sector understanding and compliance with human rights obligations arising from the proposed/draft EU Corporate Sustainable Due Diligence Directive;
      • identify and report on abusive and fraudulent labour practices notably against young workers, domestic workers, workers from ethnic/religious minorities, workers with disabilities and women workers, in the formal or informal sectors;
      • promote dialogue, reporting and experience-sharing between corporate actors, civil society organisations, government on the implementation of human rights due diligence, labour rights disputes, access to remedies and grievance mechanisms;
      • enhance the oversight role of civil society and social partners in monitoring, preventing and responding to human rights violations, including abuses of labour rights and facilitating access to remedies, in line with the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and the National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights.
  • Lot 3: Independent and pluralistic media
    • The third lot of this call will therefore support independent and pluralistic media, access to information and quality journalism with a focus on in-depth reporting and investigative journalism, notably by:
      • Supporting local and regional media outlets in their efforts to inform and engage their specific audience(s);
      • Supporting independent and investigative journalism;
      • Supporting collaboration between independent media and civil society.
    • Indicatively, proposed activities may include:
      • data collection and capacity building to promote and support independent and quality journalism and the media sector operational context;
      • activities to strengthen and adapt strategic and business plans of local and national media including alternative media models to the changing Kenyan, African and global media sector context and support sustainable media sector developments;
      • support to innovation and learning to improve adherence to high standards of ethics and balanced reporting, credibility, accountability and gender equality to strengthen media professionalism in Kenya and counter media capture and disinformation;
      • strengthening collaboration between civil society, academia and media professionals with different social accountability backgrounds, experiences, specialisations and interests;
      • support national and local media sector networks and coalitions, stakeholders dialogues and consultations on increasing youth reporting/journalism, innovation, tolerance and inclusion in media coverage.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 3,535,000. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
• Indicative allocation of funds by lots:
  • Lot 1: EUR 1,485,000
  • Lot 2: EUR 1,000,000
  • Lot 3: EUR 1,050,000
• If the allocation indicated for a specific lot cannot be used due to insufficient quality or number of proposals received, the contracting authority reserves the right to reallocate the remaining funds between other lots.
• Size of grants
  • Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
    • Lot 1:
      • minimum amount: EUR 1,485,000.00
      • maximum amount: EUR 1,485,000.00
    • Lot 2:
      • minimum amount: EUR 1,000,000.00
      • maximum amount: EUR 1,000,000.00
    • Lot 3:
      • minimum amount: EUR 1,050,000.00
      • maximum amount: EUR 1,050,000.00

Duration

• The initial planned duration of an action may not be lower than 30 months nor exceed 48 months.

Location

• In principle, all proposed activities must take place in Kenya. When duly justified and directly linked to the priorities for the specific lot under which the proposal is submitted, limited activities outside Kenya can be included in the Description of the Action.

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 a civil society organisation and/or their associations and
    • be established in Kenya or in a Member State of the European Union or in countries as stipulated in the basic act NDICI-GE and
      • However; if the lead applicant is not established in Kenya nor in an EU Member State but in countries stipulated in the basic act NDICI-GE it must act with at least two co-applicants of which one should be established in an EU Member State and one established in Kenya;
    • must 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.
  • International public-sector organisations set up by international agreements, specialised agencies set up by such organisations and other organisations assimilated to such international organisations are not eligible under this call for proposals. United Nations agencies are not eligible under this call for proposals.
• Co-applicant(s)
  • For all lots, the lead applicant must act with at least two co-applicants. If the lead applicant is established in Kenya, at least one of the co-applicants should be established in a Member State of the European Union. If the lead applicant is established in a Member State of the European Union, at least one of the co-applicants should be established in Kenya;
  • 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.
  • Co-applicants must sign the mandate form.
• 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 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 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 European Commission.