Innovation Challenge: Increasing Meaningful Participation of People with Disabilities and Older People in Humanitarian Action

Deadline: 07-Aug-20

Elrha has launched the Innovation Challenge to Increasing the Meaningful Participation of People with Disabilities and Older People in Humanitarian Action.

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This Challenge aims to support innovative mechanisms that enable people with disabilities and older people to participate fully and effectively in decision-making and in the processes for designing, developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating mainstream humanitarian programmes, policies and interventions, as relevant. The Challenge will also support the development of innovative means of assessing the effectiveness of the proposed mechanisms for participation.

To decide the focus of this Challenge, they consulted with the research team leading the Gap Analysis, as well as the Technical Working Group. From these consultations, meaningful participation emerged as a significant gap in improving inclusion in the humanitarian sector. The main issues identified were a lack of mechanisms to increase the meaningful participation of older people and people with disabilities in humanitarian action and a lack of approaches to assess the effectiveness of these mechanisms.

Participation should be an individual choice and not limited by barriers such as cultural, identity, attitudinal, physical, communication or legal/policy barriers. The overall aim of this Challenge is to support innovation to increase the meaningful participation of older people and people with disabilities across the humanitarian sector.

The Problem

The humanitarian sector has long acknowledged that the participation of people affected by crises in all stages of humanitarian programming can improve accountability and the quality of humanitarian assistance, as well as strengthen the resilience and capacity of those affected. Where participation does take place it often builds on pre-existing structures and representatives which may exclude the most marginalised and vulnerable, such as older people and people with disabilities.

In recent years there has been a renewed effort in moving beyond the rhetoric of participation and embedding it into humanitarian practice; examples of this are the “Participation Revolution” workstream part of the Grand Bargain and the participation commitment within the Core Humanitarian Standards. Similarly, the Humanitarian Inclusion Standards for People with Disabilities and Older People explicitly sets out standards for promoting the meaningful participation of older people and people with disabilities in decision-making. Yet examples of mechanisms that enable the meaningful participation of older people and people with disabilities in humanitarian programming, as well as evidence around their effectiveness, remain rare in the sector.

This Challenge aims to fund innovative projects that:

Address both elements of the Challenge, ie. propose an innovative mechanism for meaningful participation and an innovative method of assessing its effectiveness. Address both elements of the Challenge, ie. propose an innovative mechanism an innovative method of assessing its effectiveness. They are open to any types of mechanisms, but expect to see innovative mechanisms that involve community-led participation toolkits for staff, novel approaches to accessible communication and facilitation, and methods that also address the enablers of participation, such as awareness of rights and self-empowerment.
Have strong, meaningful partnerships between representative organisations (OPDs and OPAs) and humanitarian actors. Have strong, meaningful partnerships between representative organisations (OPDs and OPAs) and humanitarian actors. The involvement of OPDs and OPAs is key to enabling inclusion and they often have valuable expertise for the humanitarian community.
Are implemented as part of any type of programme or cluster area in a specific humanitarian setting. Are implemented as part of any type of programme or cluster area in a This includes, but is not limited to: Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Gender-Based Violence (GBV), Shelter, Food security, Health or Education programming, as well as in cross-cutting programmes such as feedback mechanisms.
Are committed and open to sharing ongoing progress and lessons learned with a cohort of grantees and peers.

Funding Information

Elrha have a total budget of 900,000 GBP available for this Challenge.
From this, they envisage funding a selection of projects with varying budgets, generally between 150,000 and 300,000 GBP. Please consider the range provided as suggestive and align proposed budgets and timelines with your project’s ambition.
Each project is expected to last between 15 and 20 months. All project-related activities must be completed by 30 September 2022. The total duration of projects should cover all activities including the implementation/piloting of the proposed participation mechanism, assessing its effectiveness, and the sharing of lessons learned with other innovators selected for this Challenge, as well as with the broader humanitarian sector.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible to apply for the Challenge, your application must meet the following requirements:

The lead applicant organisation must be a legally registered entity (ie, civil society organisation – including representative organisations, international non-governmental organisation, national non-governmental organisation, academic/research institution, government, private company, Red Cross/ Red Crescent movement, United Nations agency or programme). Applicants are expected to provide relevant evidence (eg, registration document) at the EoI stage.
Your application must propose for enabling people with disabilities and older people to meaningfully participate in humanitarian decision-making, and an innovative method for assessing the effectiveness of their proposed mechanism for participation. Both innovations can be at the Invention (entirely new) or Adaptation (adapted from a different context or sector) stage of humanitarian innovation.
Your application must consist of a partnership with at least one operational operational humanitarian organisation and at least one OPA or OPD working in the place of implementation (either can be the lead applicant) humanitarian organisation and OPA or OPD working in the place . You are not expected to have confirmed partnerships in place for the EoI stage, but you will be expected to provide evidence to demonstrate partnerships by the Full Proposal stage – such as a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or similar. While an MoU isn’t legally binding, it can help agree common ground and they encourage you to use one as a foundation to build an equitable partnership from.
Your project must recognise that disability and older age intersect and focus on increasing the meaningful participation of both older people and people with disabilities. older people and people with disabilities. They recognise that older people and people with disabilities are diverse and may experience distinct barriers to inclusion, but are also confident that exploring and innovating to overcome barriers faced by both people with disabilities and by older people can be beneficial in driving more inclusive practice for a diverse range of people across humanitarian action.
You are expected to implement your participation mechanism across (eg, design/development, implementation, monitoring and evaluation The stage names provided here are indicative; they recognise that different organisations may have different names for the stages framing their work. ) and clearly explain what the stages are and why these were chosen.
Your proposed mechanism for participation should be implemented in a humanitarian setting as part of an existing humanitarian programme. The mechanism may be part of a ‘Twin-track’ approach CBM (2020) “Twin track approach” and may be implemented in more than one programme
If your application is successful, you will be expected to take part in four or five HIF-facilitated engagements throughout the grant period to openly share lessons learned with the Challenge cohort. At least one representative from your project must join these sessions.

For more information, visit https://www.elrha.org/funding-opportunity/innovation-challenge-meaningful-participation/