Deadline: 5-Jun-23
UNDP would like to engage civil society organizations into the response to the crisis situation caused by the war by enhancing populations’ capacity in countering disinformation and developing media literacy skills among the population, with a special focus on vulnerable population groups in Ukraine including IDPs and people living in territories that were recently retaken by the Government of Ukraine.
The “Promotion of Human Security in Ukraine through Responding to the Multidimensional Crisis Caused by the War” Project, which is funded by the Government of Japan and implemented by UNDP Ukraine, aims at enhancing human security in Ukraine by responding to the multidimensional crisis caused by the war and addressing high vulnerability due to the ongoing war in the country.
The Project is being implemented through 5 main components:
- Restoration of essential infrastructure and provision of equipment and materials to secure life-line basic services and winterization support;
- Enhancing capacities of mine action authorities and emergency service responders to protect the civilian population from explosive ordnance and environmental hazards;
- Enhancing capacities of local authorities to clear debris and dangerous damage structures, as well as collect and safely dispose solid waste;
- Strengthening government system for crisis management, early recovery, and basic service delivery for vulnerable people;
- Developing capacities of national and local state and non-state actors to enhance community security, human rights and access to justice for all people, with a focus on IDPs and vulnerable groups.
The project “Promotion of Human Security in Ukraine through Responding to the Multidimensional Crisis Caused by the War” offers vital support to the Ukrainian state in ensuring sustainable, effective, and transparent crisis and emergency coordination, response planning, and service delivery.
Objectives
- Lot 1
- The primary focus of this Lot is to support the joint efforts of civil society organizations, think tanks and NGOs to enhance populations’ capacity in countering disinformation and developing digital literacy skills among the population with a special focus on vulnerable population groups in Ukraine including IDPs, older people and people living in conflict-affected communities. The proposed activities may be focusing on, but not limited to the following areas:
- Awareness Raising Campaigns: Conducting awareness-raising campaigns on digital and media literacy and disinformation through various channels, including social media, TV, radio, billboards, and community events. These campaigns can also include information on how to recognize and report disinformation and hate speech.
- Community-Based Fact-Checking: Encouraging community-based fact-checking initiatives that involve volunteers from different communities. These initiatives can focus on verifying the accuracy of news stories and other media content, providing citizens with reliable sources of information, and building trust in media.
- Engaging Youth: Developing youth-led media literacy and disinformation countermeasures initiatives, which can include media literacy trainings, discussion panels (clubs), fact-checking initiatives to track and analyze disinformation and hate speech in online platforms. The data collected can be used to create reports and inform policy decisions and media literacy campaigns.
- Training for Journalists: Training journalists on media literacy, critical thinking, fact-checking, and disinformation detection with the goal to produce high-quality, fact-based news reporting, and promoting media pluralism and diversity by supporting the creation and distribution of independent media outlets, particularly in underrepresented regions and communities.
- Train-the-Trainer Programmes: Conducting train-the-trainer programmes for civil society organizations, community leaders, educators on media literacy, critical thinking, fact-checking, and disinformation detection. This will help build a cadre of trained professionals who can disseminate accurate information and counter disinformation within their respective communities.
- The primary focus of this Lot is to support the joint efforts of civil society organizations, think tanks and NGOs to enhance populations’ capacity in countering disinformation and developing digital literacy skills among the population with a special focus on vulnerable population groups in Ukraine including IDPs, older people and people living in conflict-affected communities. The proposed activities may be focusing on, but not limited to the following areas:
- Lot 2
- The projects submitted within this Lot should contribute to improving media literacy and countering disinformation in Ukraine through conducting baseline studies, evaluating existing initiatives, monitoring disinformation, exploring innovative approaches to countering disinformation, and building research capacity. The proposed activities may be focusing on, but not limited to the following areas:
- Baseline studies: Conducting baseline studies on media consumption patterns, disinformation, and media literacy among different population groups, including IDPs and people living in territories that were recently retaken by the Government of Ukraine. This will help identify the key challenges and opportunities for media literacy initiatives and guide the design of effective interventions.
- Evaluating existing initiatives: Evaluating existing media literacy initiatives to assess their effectiveness, identify best practices, and inform the design of future interventions. This can include assessing the impact of different training programs, awareness-raising campaigns, and community-based initiatives.
- Disinformation monitoring and analysis: Conducting ongoing monitoring and analysis of disinformation trends, tactics, and actors in Ukraine. This can include tracking the spread of false narratives and propaganda, identifying the sources of disinformation, and analyzing the impact of disinformation on different population groups.
- Innovative media literacy approaches: Exploring and testing innovative approaches to media literacy and disinformation countermeasures, such as gamification, augmented reality, and virtual reality. This can involve conducting pilot studies to test the effectiveness of these approaches and gathering feedback from participants.
- Building research capacity: Building the research capacity of civil society organizations, journalists, and academics to conduct research on media literacy and disinformation. This can include providing training on research methods, data analysis, and dissemination of research findings.
- The projects submitted within this Lot should contribute to improving media literacy and countering disinformation in Ukraine through conducting baseline studies, evaluating existing initiatives, monitoring disinformation, exploring innovative approaches to countering disinformation, and building research capacity. The proposed activities may be focusing on, but not limited to the following areas:
- Lot 3
- The projects submitted to this Lot should contribute to the advancement and promotion of digital accessibility and awareness of these issues. The proposed activities may be focusing on, but are not limited to the following areas:
- Evaluation of digital accessibility in certain spheres or geographical regions. These research findings may become the basis for advocacy or awareness-raising campaigns.
- Advocacy/awareness Raising Campaigns: digital resources are rarely fully inclusive in Ukraine but at the same time due to war casualties many Ukrainians require inclusive digital resources in the age of fast digitalization where many important aspects of life are digital but not always accessible. Advocacy/awareness raising might be targeted at CSOs, public administrations and local authorities, businesses.
- Educational activities aimed at teaching representatives of target organizations (CSOs, authorities, businesses) on how to implement digital inclusion on their websites and other digital resources.
- The projects submitted to this Lot should contribute to the advancement and promotion of digital accessibility and awareness of these issues. The proposed activities may be focusing on, but are not limited to the following areas:
- The applying organization may choose to select one or several activities to be implemented within the proposed project.
Funding Information
- All relevant events and activities will need to be completed by 15 October 2023, and the maximum co-funding from UNDP shall not exceed 70’000 USD.
- The maximum timeframe for the project implementation is 6 months.
Geographic location: UNDP will accept applications from all regions of Ukraine.
Eligibility Criteria
- Non-profit organizations, in particular charitable organizations, public associations (including civil society organizations and unions) that are officially registered in Ukraine for no less than one year and have experience of project implementation in the proposed priority area. The contest does not provide grants to profit organizations, political parties, state authorities, local governments, religious communities and private (physical) individuals and entrepreneurs.
- The parameters that will determine whether an NGO is eligible to be considered for funding by UNDP will be based on the Capacity Assessment Checklist CACHE.
- Specific requirements (per lot):
- Lot 1: CSO should have at least 2 projects on countering fakes on its portfolio and at least 5 years of experience in the field.
- Lot 2: CSO should have at least 2 projects on communication issues on its portfolio and at least 5 years of experience in the field.
- Lot 3: CSO should have at least 2 projects on digitalization on its portfolio and at least 5 years of experience in the field.
For more Information, visit UNDP.