Deadline: 30-Jun-23
Hivos has announced a call for proposals to support capacity strengthening and organizational development of youth led/youth-focused organizations to enable youth to gather and control the knowledge about their sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) needs and issues as well as to sustain their efforts over a longer period of time.
The Regional SRHR Fund will support a number of youth-led/youth-focused organizations per year and work through Organizational Development Specialists dedicated to each organization over the project period to achieve their transformation goals and build robust and well-functioning youth-led and/or youth-focused organizations. Organizational Development Specialists will support youth-led organizations in the areas of:
- Organizational values, vision and mission
- Governance and organizational organograms
- Program management expertise
- Financial Management Systems (FMS) and procedures
- Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) systems and procedures
- Organizational policies and procedures
- Fundraising/donor mapping and proposals writing
- Experience of working on ASRHR programs
- Advocacy on ASRHR and related human rights issues
- Ethics and values of working within the ASRHR sector
Proposal Focus
- Capacity strengthening is needed to facilitate genuine youth participation and leadership, to enable youth to gather and control the knowledge about their SRHR needs and issues as well as to build the foundation for a cadre of youth-led/youth-focused organizations that can sustain their efforts over a longer period of time.
- The grants are aimed at supporting capacity strengthening and organizational development of youth led/youth-focused organizations. The grants will be undertaken through an accompaniment model where grantees will be graduated from one level to the next of the grant, based on the attainment of a particular score on their capacity development plans.
- To achieve this, the Fund will support organizational capacity strengthening to the selected youth-led/youth focused organizations over the lifetime of the program. This will include organizational development support, leadership trainings, mentorship and accompaniment including exchange visits across the portfolios to learn best practices. The capacity strengthening grants will ensure national and regional specific stronger voices, inclusion and representation of adolescents and youths. These grants will also enable organizations to undertake work on adolescent and youth SRHR and ensure full participation at all levels of decision making. Furthermore, the grant will support coordination, collaboration and learning among youth-led organizations and groups to promote movement building, learning and mutual accountability through program reflection and linking and learning processes.
Project funds will be provided to selected youth-led/youth focused organizations to undertake innovative projects at national level to address the key challenges that young people and adolescents face in accessing sexual and reproductive health and services.
Focus Areas
The proposal should present an innovative approach and activities to ensure youth-led organizations have the technical expertise and capacity to deliver quality, comprehensive SRHR activities/services. The proposed proposals therefore should focus on the following:
- Increased coordination of youth-led organizations by collaborating with other youth-led organizations, government structures and other youth-focused organizations.
- Increased representation, participation & visibility of youth-led organizations at national levels within the East and Southern Africa region.
- Improved youth leadership at organization and civic policy spaces by facilitating representation and participation of adolescents and young people at national and regional policy formulation spaces.
- Increased support and funding of youth-led organizations by mobilising resources through other available opportunities.
- Enabling political and legislative environment for youth’s participation in national and regional policy formulation.
Types of Grants
- Category 1 Seed Grants
- Category 2 Growth Grants
Funding Information
Successful organizations will receive comprehensive capacity strengthening for their organizations, and multi-year grants of up to USD 50,000 (Year 1: USD 25,000 and Year 2: USD 25,000) for seed grants and $100,000 (Year 1: USD 50,000 and Year 2: USD 50,000) for growth grants. Second year grants will be based on performance for renewal.
- Category 1 Seed Grants
- Project duration: Multi-year
- Award amount: Year 1: USD 25,000 / Year 2: USD 25,000
- Category 2 Growth Grants
- Project duration: Multi-year
- Award amount: Year 1: USD 50,000 / Year 2: USD 50,000
Expected Results
- Increased coordination of youth-led organizations.
- Increased representation, participation and visibility of youth led organisations at national and regional policy formulation spaces.
- Increased youth leadership at organization and civic policy spaces.
- Increased support and funding of youth-led organizations.
Preference will be given to:
- Youth-led organizations led by a youth aged 35 years and younger working on SRHR in the focus countries (organizations with a regional focus are welcome to apply).
- Youth-led organizations with clear value statements on diversity, inclusion and full SRHR rights for all.
- Young female-led and youth-led/focused organizations valuing feminist approaches to SRHR.
- Youth-led organizations reaching the poorest or most vulnerable adolescent and youth population to increase their access to SRHR.
- Youth-led organizations with a key focus on breaking down barriers/ challenge social and gender norms around adolescent and youth SRHR.
- Youth-led organizations with clearly identified gaps for organisational development and a willingness to improve on such gaps.
- Proposals that factor in the linkage between SRHR and environmental matters such as climate change will be highly considered.
Eligible Countries
- Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Additional information
- The organization should be able to demonstrate an understanding of SRHR in the region and the connection to young people and adolescents.
- Submission of a proposal does not automatically guarantee funding.
- Proposals that are well thought out and demonstrate an innovative clear connection to the objectives of the Regional SRHR Fund and the call for proposal.
- Proposals that articulate an innovative approach to working with key change makers and authorities that have power to bring about change.
- Proposals that have the potential to realize meaningful youth participation in the ASRHR agenda in East and Southern Africa.
- Proposals that demonstrate knowledge on related advocacy work being done in the same environment and provide justification on how the Regional SRHR Fund will complement it.
- Proposals must demonstrate how the initiative will empower marginalized groups to advocate for their rights and access to services.
For more information, visit Hivos.