Deadline extended till 31 March 2020
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) and BirdLife International, as regional implementation team for the hotspot, are inviting proposals in the form of letters of inquiry.
The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is designed to safeguard Earth’s biologically richest and most threatened regions, known as biodiversity hotspots. A fundamental goal is to ensure civil society is engaged in biodiversity conservation. The CEPF is a joint initiative of l’Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International (CI), the European Union, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan and the World Bank.
The Guinean Forests support impressive levels of biodiversity, having high levels of species richness and endemism. It also faces many ongoing threats to biodiversity that have resulted in the loss of more than 85 percent of the native vegetation cover.
Funding Information
The minimum budget per project for this call is US$50,000.00. The overall budget for this call is about US$1.3M. Although there is no maximum budget set for this call, each budget will be evaluated based on the project’s contributions toward the CEPF targets.
Eligible Activities
The scope of this call is exclusively limited to the Strategic Direction 2 of the ecosystem profile: Mainstream biodiversity conservation into public policy and private sector practice in the nine conservation corridors, at local, sub-national and national levels.
Projects should be aligned with one or more of the CEPF investment priorities related to Strategic Direction 2:
- Conduct policy-relevant research, analysis and outreach that informs and influences the development of national government conservation policies, including on protected area management, payment for ecosystem services, REDD+ and ecosystem-based adaptation to climate change.
- Generate locally relevant information on natural ecosystems (e.g., economic valuations of ecosystem services) to influence political and economic decisionmaking in favor of their conservation.
- Facilitate partnerships among local communities, private sector and government to demonstrate models for best practice mining, sustainable forestry and sustainable agriculture by private companies.
Projects will need to demonstrate and quantify the contribution of their impacts toward the following CEPF targets:
- At least five conservation-related policies of national governments are informed or influenced by research, analysis and outreach supported by CEPF grants.
- Locally relevant information on natural ecosystems is generated for at least 20 Key Biodiversity Areas and used to influence political and economic decision-making in favor of their conservation.
- At least 20 partnerships are formed or strengthened among civil society, government, private sector and communities to promote best practices in mining, sustainable forestry and agriculture by private companies.
- At least five private companies adopt new management practices consistent with biodiversity conservation at operations in the conservation corridors.
Eligibility Criteria
- Non-government organizations; community groups and associations; private enterprises; universities; research institutes; and other civil society organizations may apply for funding.
- Government-owned enterprises or institutions are eligible only if they can demonstrate that the enterprise or institution:
- has a legal personality independent of any government agency or actor;
- has the authority to apply for and receive private funds; and
- may not assert a claim of sovereign immunity.
- Organizations must have their own bank account and be authorized under relevant national laws to receive charitable contributions.
- Individuals are not eligible.
How to Apply
- Applicants must respond to the call via the ConservationGrants electronic portal. CEPF will not accept letters of inquiry via email or any other mechanism.
- Applicants who already have a ConservationGrants portal account should use the same one. Applicants who do not yet have a ConservationGrants portal account will be prompted to create a new account.
For more information, visit https://www.cepf.net/grants/open-calls-for-proposals/2020-guinean-forests-large-grants-strategic-direction-2