Call for Proposals: Legal Aid and Assistance for Poor and Marginalized Communities (Kenya)

Deadline: 21-Aug-23

UNDP Amkeni Wakenya invites interested and eligible National Organizations including NGOs, FBOs, Academic Institutions, CBOs to submit proposals for award of grants in a programme entitled Repeat-Call 9 (PLEAD2):

Lot 2 (Tana River County CSOs only) – Enhanced Access to Justice for the Poor and Marginalized Communities.

Lot 3 (National Actors only) – Strengthen Paralegalism and Self-Regulation.

To effectively achieve the aforementioned goal, this particular CfP seeks to enhance advocacy for the accelerated delivery of legal aid and access to formal and informal justice systems for the target groups.  The advocacy interventions to be pursued by successful applicants will target both state and non-state actors under PLEAD. Regarding this particular CfP, prospective grantees are expected to render interventions that demonstrate complementarity and supplementation of initiatives being pursued by CSO grantees of the previous Amkeni Wakenya/PLEAD phase 1 and other stakeholders under PLEAD, with a focus on the mentioned groups drawn from poor and vulnerable populations.

Thematic Focus

• The interventions in the proposals will be supported through award of grants. There will be two lots of awards distributed as follows.
  • Lot two: Enhanced access to justice for the poor and marginalised communities in Tana River County. Two grants will be awarded in Tana River County per year over a two-year period. The grants will have a value of USD 30,000 per year.
  • Lot three: One grant will be issued to a national Actor competitively to Strengthen Paralegalism and Self-Regulation for two years. This is in line with the PBO Act of 2013 which supports self-regulation by the CSOs.

Target Groups

• Further interventions to specific target groups include but not limited to:
  • Children in conflict with the law
    • Strengthening and establishing child protection structures which could include rescue centres, gender recovery centres, Ideal police gender & children’s desks, specialized/child friendly courts for children and community resource centres.
    • Legal aid provision to children in conflict with the law through plea bargaining, diversion, legal representation and case follow-ups as well as provision psycho-social support to the child-victims/survivors of abuse/violence
    • Supporting the rehabilitation and reintegration of children into society, with a view to preventing reoffending and promoting positive behaviour, in partnership with the ODPP, supporting implementation of diversion policy.
  • Women and Youth
    • Provision of legal awareness to women and youth an integrating AJS and gender justice through training of Community based governance structures on the NaSCI AJS policy.
    • Provision of psychosocial support to widows/women/victims of sexual and gender-based violence as well as creating women safe spaces, that utilize women’s unique position in families, local communities and national context.
    • Forging partnerships with the International Association of Women Judges & the Office of the Chief Justice to support the judiciary to establish more specialized SGBV courts within the other counties nationally.
  • PWDS
    • Creating awareness against the discrimination of PWDs as well as supporting PWDs participation and mainstreaming PWDs perspectives/capacity in decision making processes related to social, economic and environmental justice as well as in social, economic and environmental justice processes
    • Designing and developing disability-specific services that cater to the needs of persons with disabilities can help bridge the gap between the justice system and PWDs.
    • Capacity building to duty-bearers on disability-specific training in recognizing and accommodating different disabilities, as well as how to respond to incidents involving persons with disabilities to ensure that they are better equipped to communicate and interact with persons with disabilities.
  • Victims of Sexual Based Violence
    • Overcoming legal disadvantage for vulnerable groups including survivors of SGBV require targeted legal empowerment policies and programs. As such specialized coordinated interventions shall be required to, provide not only access to justice but an enabling framework to facilitate the much-needed essential support services to persons in vulnerable situations which include but not limited to the following;
    • Supporting review, development and implementation of frameworks, policies and legislation on facilitating access to justice for vulnerable groups including sexual and gender-based violence
    • Development and implementation of coordinated trainings for targeted partner institutions on sexual and gender-based violence including vulnerable groups.
    • Support towards coordinated operationalization of specialized institutional interventions for vulnerable persons including sexual and gender-based courts.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this CFP is USD 150,000 per year (indicative exchange rate 1 USD=KES 141.11). Below is the table that shows the allocation for each Lot.
  • Result: Enhanced access to justice for the poor and marginalised
    • Category/LOT: Lot II-Projects that promote legal aid and awareness for marginalised communities in Tana River County. Two grants will be issued per year for two years
    • Indicative Total Budget Available per year: USD 120,000
    • Number of Grants: 2
    • Indicative Allocation per Grant per year: USD 60,000
    • Project Duration: 24 months
  • Result: Establish innovative CSO self-regulation frameworks at the county/ national levels.
    • Category/LOT: Lot three: One grant will be issued per year for two years to a national Actor competitively to Strengthen Paralegalism and Self-Regulation. This is in line with the PBO Act of 2013 which supports self-regulation by the CSOs.
    • Indicative Total Budget Available per year: USD 60,000
    • Number of Grants: 1
    • Indicative Allocation per Grant per year: USD 30,000
    • Project Duration: 24 months

Interventions

• Enhancing institutional and technical capacity of PLEAD Implementing Stakeholders: Grantees are expected to build and improve their capacity and that of implementing state institutions to advocate and deliver on access to justice interventions targeting special interest groups.
• Empowering marginalized groups through concrete actions: Grantees will be expected to accelerate integration within existing PLEAD interventions, specific strategies and actions that work towards empowering marginalized groups, particularly youth, women and PWDs.
• Mainstreaming gender and human rights: Grantees will be expected to mainstream gender in all the projects. This will entail recognizing the differing needs of girls and boys, women and men in all phases of the project.
• Improving networking and peer learning among CSOs: Participating organisations will be required to engage in strategic vertical and horizontal partnerships to enhance assess to justice and provide optimal assistance to the poor and marginalised. Efforts to make networks more representative and accountable and coordination amongst them will be supported.

Eligible Projects

• The project should propose innovative implementation approaches under PLEAD II while paying special attention to the following aspects:
  • The approaches should be aligned to PLEAD II objectives as well as complement or supplement ongoing initiatives under PLEAD I specifically targeting vulnerable and marginalised communities.
  • Relation with Legal Aid Act of 2016 and any other relevant access to justice policy and legislation.
  • Mainstreaming cross cutting issues e.g. human rights (rights-based approaches), gender, conflict sensitivity, environment, leadership.
  • Partnerships with the key duty bearers.
  • Verifiable data on the outcome of the project at the level of activity, result and specific objectives.
  • Communication and visibility strategy.
  • Sustainability strategy.

Geographic Scope

• Lot II targets non-state actors in the Rural County of Tana River with grants to support legal aid delivery.
• Lot III will target national level Actor who will support formulation of CSO self-regulation frameworks.

Location

• Projects should take place only in Kenya and in the targeted county (Tana River) or National as appropriate with evidence of physical presence in Tana River and National as appropriate.

Eligibility Criteria

• To be eligible for this grant, applicants must:
  • Have legal personality.
  • Be a non-profit making entity.
  • Be a Non-State Actor (NSA) registered as a CBO/NGO in Kenya for a minimum period of not less than two (2) years under the relevant laws of Kenya.
  • Be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the projects with their beneficiaries in the target county, not acting as an intermediary/ nor sub-granting.
  • Demonstrate solid prior experience of at least two years carrying out activities in the thematic area covered under this call for proposals in the target county.
  • The NSA should have presence/located in the target county (For Tana River grant) both programmatically and physically. For the national grant, the applicant must have national demonstrate national programmatic outlook.
• Non-state Actors/Strategic Partners who have not been supported by UNDP-Amkeni previously through grants are highly encouraged to apply.

For more information, visit United Nations Development Programme.