CFAs: UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture

Deadline: 01-Mar-2025

The United Nations General Assembly mandated the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture to distribute voluntary contributions to victims of torture through “established channels of assistance”.

The United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture’s mandate is to receive “voluntary contributions for distribution, through established channels of assistance, as humanitarian, legal and financial aid to individuals whose human rights have been severely violated as a result of torture and to relatives of such victims. The Fund fulfills its mandate by awarding grants for civil society organizations worldwide to implement projects aimed at providing services to victims of torture and their relatives.

Categories

• The Fund awards two types of annual grants:
  • Direct assistance annual grants:
    • The Fund may award annual direct assistance grants to projects providing medical, psychological, social, economic, legal, humanitarian, educational or other forms of direct assistance to torture survivors and their family members.
    • In order to be admissible, organizations must submit five case studies with the direct assistance project application.
    • Direct assistance projects may include a skills-building and/or institutional development component. This may cover in-house training for staff and volunteers directly involved in project implementation, in order to develop their professional skills to assist torture survivors and/or to improve self-care, prevention and protection from vicarious trauma.
    • Direct assistance rendered to survivors in the form of socio-economic support should be in kind and only in exceptional cases in cash.
    • Funding of activities related to the intake process of the beneficiaries and/or to inform beneficiaries of the services provided by the organizations in the context of the project, such as hotline maintenance, leaflets and webpages, is acceptable within reason.
    • Activities such as studies, research, lobbying, advocacy and publication of newsletters, are ineligible for funding from the Fund.
    • The Fund does not provide financial compensation to torture survivors. The Fund will not support litigation seeking capital punishment of perpetrators of torture.
    • Organizations can only submit one application for direct assistance per country under the same call for applications.
    • Applications for projects to provide direct assistance to torture survivors should provide information on whether access to aid is available through a State-sponsored or other mechanisms.
  • Capacity building annual grants:
    • The Fund may award annual capacity building grants to organizations or specialized networks (for example hospitals, professional associations, rehabilitation centers, survivors’ groups, etc.) seeking to strengthen their own capacity to ensure the provision of specialized services to torture survivors and their family members.
    • The applicant should explain the existing gap in specialized services for torture survivors and demonstrate how the project proposes to fill that gap.
    • Only one capacity building application per applicant and per year will be accepted.
    • Project proposals seeking to increase the capacity of other organizations (trainer organizations) are not eligible.
    • In addition to the above and in order to be admissible, the applicant shall submit the following:
      • CVs of staff involved in the project
      • CVs of trainers
      • Training programme
      • Provisional list of participants
      • Proof of other funding sources

Funding Information

• Direct assistance annual grants:
  • As a general rule, direct assistance grants range between US$ 30,000 and US$ 100,000. Only “on-going applicant” organizations submitting a continuation of a funded project proposal in the same country of implementation may be awarded a grant of more than US$50,000. Direct assistance grants for “first-time” or “returning” categories of applicant organizations cannot exceed US$50,000.
• Capacity building annual grants:
  • Capacity building grants cannot exceed US$50,000 for all categories of applicant organizations (first-time, returning and on-going). Eligible expenses may include: salaries of staff involved in capacity building (only for “trainer” organizations), fees or daily allowances of external trainers (only for “trainee” organizations), venue rental, interpretation, travel, accommodation.
• Duration: Direct assistance and capacity building grants (annual grants) cover project implementation for a given 12-month calendar year.

Eligible Projects

• Projects should demonstrate a clear victim-centered focus and gender-sensitive approach.
• A victim-centered approach systematically ensures that beneficiaries occupy a central place in the design and delivery of assistance from the outset of a procedure to its conclusion. Organizations should demonstrate how individual victims are being informed and consulted about available services and associated risks and benefits of the assistance enabling them to make fully informed decisions.
• Professionals involved in the project should be guided by trauma informed practices, based on understanding, recognizing, and responding to the effects of all types of trauma to prevent possible risks of re-traumatization by victims and vicarious traumatization by staff and volunteers.
• Organizations should also explain how they assess and address risks and the effects of torture experienced by different beneficiaries (such as women, men, girls and boys, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex people (LGBTI), migrants, indigenous peoples, national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, persons with disabilities, etc.).
• A gender perspective should be integrated in all stages of the project. The project should take into account the different impact that acts of torture, in particular sexual and gender based violence, may have on all victims but particularly on women, girls and LGBTI people.

Eligibility Criteria

• Only applications by civil society organizations and other channels of assistance (for example, hospitals and professional associations) (hereafter organizations) are admissible.
• Organizations should be in operation for at least one year before submitting an application to the Fund. The Fund may consider exceptions to the latter for organizations having to establish a new legal entity due to obstacles or measures.
• For the purpose of the present guidelines, the Fund distinguishes between the following categories of applicant organizations:
  • First-time applicants: organizations which have never received a grant from the Fund;
  • Returning applicants: organizations which have received a grant from the Fund in the past but not in the previous year;
  • On-going applicants: organizations which are currently receiving a grant (direct assistance or capacity building) from the Fund, divided in two subcategories:
    • organizations submitting a continuation of a funded project proposal in the same country of implementation;
    • organizations submitting a different project or a different type of grant proposal (direct assistance or capacity building) in the same country of implementation, or a project in a different country of implementation.

Ineligibility Criteria

• Applications by governmental, parliamentary or administrative entities, political parties or national liberation movements are inadmissible.
• Projects aiming to establish a new organization are inadmissible.

For more information, visit United Nations.