Call for Proposals: Community Empowerment Support to Women and Girls (South Sudan)

Deadline: 13-Oct-23

UN Women South Sudan Office is pleased to announce a call for proposals soliciting Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), i.e. National Non-Government Organisations and International Non-Government Organizations (INGOs) with relevant experience, proven innovative, high impact and fast track strategies on the advancement of gender equality, protection and the empowerment of women and girls to lead in delivering Component 1 of the South Sudan Women’s Social and Economic Empowerment (SSWSEEP).

Under component 1 – Community Empowerment Support to Women and Girls of the SSWSEEP project, UN Women seeks to competitively recruit NGO/INNGOs/CSO/ partners in all project target locations to support the delivery of various services to women, men, boys, and adolescent girls at satellite Women Empowerment Centres (WECCs).

This component builds on the Ministry of Gender, Child, and Social Welfare (MGCSW) mandate of promoting gender equality, and social justice, and safeguarding the rights and welfare of women, children, persons with disability and other vulnerable groups, which is shared by UN Women.

Project Activities

• Support for Social Services:
  • Strengthening Women and Girl’s Social Capital, Voice and Agency through Networking and Organizational Capacity: the successful NGO/CSO/INGOs will implement interventions that strengthen women’s voices, social capital, and organizational capacities through their networks and organizations. Among other interventions, the successful NGO/CSO/INGOs will train women and adolescent girls through their networks on:
    • life skills, such as leadership, confidence building, conflict resolution, negotiation skills, and communication,
    • group management, such as record keeping, financial literacy and group decision-making;
    • peacebuilding and advocacy and lobbying, and
    • basic literacy and numeracy
  • Engaging men and boys: the successful NGO/CSO/INGOs will support the implementation of interventions around male engagement and must have the requisite tools and experience to deliver training to men and boys in the community and educate them on the importance of greater women’s participation in community peacebuilding and income-generating activities. Further, the applicant must use innovative tools to enlist the negative effects of patriarchal social and gender norms without causing further harm. This component targets a minimum 12,000 men and boys, across the 48 locations addressing the negative social and patriarchal norms that negatively affect women’s participation and benefit from economic activities and peacebuilding processes. Religious and cultural leaders are potential beneficiaries of this outreach. Married women and those who are living with their spouses should be encouraged to have their male partners participate in these trainings and discussions.
  • GBV Referral: The successful service provider will be expected to undertake a GBV referral assessment in the areas in which they are operating.  Each existing satellite WECC will be expected to have a trained GBV focal person and/or counsellor trained to receive GBV cases or complaints and make the necessary referrals to specialized services, either social and/or livelihood related. The service provider will be expected to make operational this referral service.
• Support for Livelihoods
  • Support to business training skills and value chain development: Service providers will be expected to deliver services on market/business skills training undertaken in accordance with the business needs of each community with a priority on income generating activities. Technical market skills trainings may include savings and credit skills, financial literacy, numeracy, vocational skills, natural resource management good practices and its linkages to livelihoods such as climate smart agriculture, agricultural value chains, Agri-processing, tailoring, hair dressing, and textile industries. The market/business skills training will be undertaken in accordance with the business needs of each community with a priority on income generating activities. Business plans will be developed to support the future implementation of livelihood subgrants under the project. Specific value chain development may include (a) honey, (b) sesame, (c) poultry, (d) groundnuts, (e) maize, (f) sorghum, (g) fruits and vegetables to add value through transformational processing and market linkages.

Funding Information

• Component Budget: UN Women will make available a maximum sum of USD $4 million for applicants proposing to cover a maximum of 4 States and one Administrative Area.
• Timeframe: Start date and end date for completion of required services/results
  • The services under this Component 1 will be a 2 ½ year project running from January 2024- June 2026. A successful applicant is expected to be recruited by end of December 2023.

Geographical Coverage

• The project will be implemented in all 10 states in South Sudan and 2 Administrative areas:
  • States: Central Equatoria (Juba), Western Equatoria (Yambio), Eastern Equatoria, (Torit), Jonglei (Bor), Unity (Bentiu), Upper Nile (Malakal), Lakes (Rumbek), Warrap (Kuajok), Western Bahr el Ghazal (Wau), and Northern Bahr el Ghazal (Aweil).
  • Administrative areas: Ruweng and Pibor.

Eligibility Criteria

• Technical/functional competencies required:
  • At least 7 years of experience in providing economic empowerment and social services, such as GBV protection and community empowerment support to women and girls in fragile settings.
  • At least 3 years of field experience in Africa and preferably in South Sudan.
  • At least 7 years proven experience in managing complex, multi-year programs in Africa with a focus on community empowerment support to women and girls in fragile settings.
  • Demonstrated record of achieving results, using innovative and experimental programmatic approaches.
  • Experience supporting capacity and institutional growth for grassroots-based organisations with a focus on community empowerment support to women and girls in fragile settings will be of added advantage.
  • At least 7 years’ experience in project grants management, including project design and sub-grant management, budget management, and governance, preferably for grants from multiple public donors.
  • At least 7 years of experience implementing women’s economic empowerment projects, focusing on Village Savings and Loans Associations, Business and financial management, value-chains, and linkages to markets.
  • Strong capacity in monitoring programme performance and the agility to quickly adapt to policy/programmatic exigencies is a requirement.
  • Key staff have at least 5 years relevant experience in women’s economic empowerment, and provision of social and protection services to women and girls in fragile settings in Africa.
  • Ability to locate WECCs-focused staff on the ground in South Sudan including at state and satellite locations for extended periods to advance key workstreams is encouraged.
  • Have presence (an office with staff capacity) in South Sudan. Alternatively, applicants should demonstrate that they have existing partnerships or will establish partnerships with CSOs/NGOs in South Sudan. In such cases, applicants will indicate potential partnerships and will subsequently need to enter an MOU as part of this engagement.
  • International NGOs interested to apply will have to demonstrate on how they will engage and or work with local NGOs on the project, to strengthen synergies to and make sure that the localization processes are sustained.
• Other competencies, which while not required, can be an asset for the performance of services:
  • Experience in design, monitoring and evaluation of development programmes/projects and establishing partnerships with national and state governments in fragile contexts.
  • Previous experience working with UN agencies, UN Women and international Organizations.

For more information, visit UN Women.