Call for Proposals: Supporting Civil Society Organizations in Somalia

Deadline: 4-May-23

The European Commission (EC) has announced the Call for Proposals to support civil society organisations that promote and protect human rights, foster freedom of expression and enhance peacebuilding, conflict prevention and social cohesion, through arts, culture and sports.

The current Call for Proposals also aims to strengthen the European Union’s partnership with civil society actors according to the three pillars of the EU Roadmap for Engagement with Civil Society in Somalia (2021-2025).

These pillars include:

• Enhancing efforts to promote an enabling environment for CSOs,
• Strengthening local CSOs’ capacities to increase their credibility as partners in development; and
• Promoting local CSO participation in dialogue, policy formulation and advocacy through collaboration, partnerships and networking of Somali CSOs across geographical and thematic areas.

Support to civil society through the thematic Programme on Human rights and Democracy in Somalia is complementary to other programmes funded by the Global Europe/NDICI instrument such as the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) Programme.

Objectives of the Programme and Priority Issues

• The global objective of this call for proposals is the promotion and protection of:
  • Human rights and fundamental freedoms;
  • Democracy; and
  • The rule of law in Somalia
• The priority(ies) of this call for proposals are:
  • Priority 1 – Protecting and empowering communities through cultural, artistic and sporting initiatives.
  • Priority 2 – Promoting the principles of living together and the common public space, including freedom of expression and democratic debate.
• The crosscutting priorities of this call for proposals are:
  • Rights-based approach
    • The European Consensus on Development commits the EU and its Member States to implementing a rightsbased approach (RBA) to development, encompassing all Human Rights as well as EU’s commitment to promote and protect human rights and democracy as enshrined in the Joint Communication and EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy for 2020-2024.
  • Gender Equality
    • Gender equality constitutes a fundamental human rights principle and a common value of the European Union through integrating the objectives of the third EU Gender Action Plan (GAP III), with a specific focus on the goal outlined in the NDICI-GLOBAL EUROPE on strengthening strategic dialogue on gender equality and women’s empowerment with CSOs.
  • Youth Participation
    • The European Union recognises youth as key actors of development and an integral part of the solution to promote peace and security. Civil Society is an important actor in promoting youth engagement and involving and/or representing youth and youth interests in key policy processes. The proposed actions should support youth organisations capacities and participation in a gender sensitive and responsive way, taking into account the different barriers and obstacles for male and female youth.
  • Digitalisation
    • The exponential spread and scale-up of digital technologies and services has profound global implications, creating opportunities for sustainable development and inclusive growth, but at the same time bringing new threats and challenges. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development highlights the importance of information and communication technologies (ICT) in developing countries as powerful enablers of growth. Reference to ICT can be found explicitly as a target under SDG 9 “Build resilient infrastructure, promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation”, while ICT is also referenced in the targets related to climate change (SDGs 13, 14 and 15), gender equality and women empowerment (SDG 5), private sector development (SDG 8), education (SDG 4) and health (SDG 3). In line with the 2030 Agenda and as indicated in the new European Consensus on Development, the EU and its Member states will continue to develop their support for promoting ICT in partner countries.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 1 600 000 to be financed under 2022 budget and an indicatively EUR 900 000 to be financed under 2023 budget, subject to the availability of the appropriations provided for in the general budget of the Union for 2023. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds. Similarly, this amount could be increased should more funds become available.
• Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
  • Minimum amount: EUR 500,000.
  • Maximum amount: EUR 600,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead applicant
  • In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
    • Be a legal person and
    • Be non-profit-making and
    • Be a civil society organization or an association of civil society organizations and
    • Be established in Somalia or in a Member State of the European Union or any territory, as no nationality restriction applies to applicants and, if any, to co-applicants, and affiliated entities and.
    • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the coapplicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary.
  • Potential applicants may not participate in calls for proposals or be awarded grants if they are in any of the situations,
  • Lead applicants, co-applicants, affiliated entities and, in case of legal entities, persons who have powers of representation, decision-making or control over the lead applicant, the co-applicants and the affiliated entities are informed that, should they be in one of the situations of early detection or exclusion, personal details (name, given name if natural person, address, legal form and name and given name of the persons with powers of representation, decision-making or control, if legal person) may be registered in the early detection and exclusion system, and communicated to the persons and entities concerned in relation to the award or the execution of a grant contract. In this respect, provisionally selected lead applicants, co-applicants and affiliated entities or those placed in the reserve list are obliged to declare that they are not in one of the exclusion situations through a signed declaration on honour. For grants of EUR 15 000 or less, no declaration on honour is required.
  • If the lead applicant is established in another country than Somalia, the lead applicant must act with at least one co-applicant(s), as specified hereafter, established in Somalia. If awarded the grant contract, the lead applicant will become the beneficiary identified as the coordinator in Annex G (special conditions). The coordinator is the sole interlocutor of the contracting authority. It represents and acts on behalf of any other co-beneficiary (if any) and coordinate the design and implementation of the action.
• Co-applicant(s)
  • Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
  • Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.
  • At least one co-applicant must be local, i.e. established in Somalia.
• Affiliated entities
  • The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies).
  • Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to coapplicant(s):
  • Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in
  • particular a legal or capital link.
  • This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
    • Control, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
    • Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
      • Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
      • Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
      • Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
    • Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which
  • The proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g.
  • Network, federation, association,…) as the proposed affiliated entities.

For more information, visit EC.