CFPs: Strengthening the role of Key and Vulnerable Populations (New Projects)

Deadline: 21-Jan-2025

L’Initiative is seeking proposals to strengthen the role of key and Vulnerable Populations in relation to HIV, tuberculosis and/or malaria to improve their health and wellbeing.

It supports projects seeking initial funding from L’Initiative (new projects) and designed for, and in collaboration with, key and vulnerable populations, especially young girls and women, who currently represent the majority of new HIV infections and are particularly vulnerable to malaria and tuberculosis. Promoting their health and well-being through targeted prevention and empowerment efforts is critical in combating major pandemics.

Objectives

• The new Global Fund strategy focuses on strengthening, supporting and ensuring effective participation of populations with a central aim of collaborating with people and communities and meeting their health needs through three complementary and mutually reinforcing objectives:
  • Maximizing People-centered Integrated Systems for Health to Deliver Impact, Resilience and Sustainability.
  • Maximizing the Engagement and Leadership of Most Affected Communities to Leave No One Behind.
  • Maximizing Health Equity, Gender Equality and Human Rights.

Aims

• It is against this backdrop that L’Initiative plans to support projects that complement and/or support Global Fund programs, aimed at strengthening the role of key and vulnerable populations to improve their state of health, including mental health, and their environment.
• Target beneficiaries for projects are the following – applicants do not have to reach all the population groups listed below, or address all the multiple areas of vulnerability:
  • Key populations: key populations are those most at-risk or affected by at least one of the three diseases and who are stakeholders involved in the response. They generally have reduced access to services and may be criminalized and/or marginalized.
  • The following groups are generally considered to be key populations:
    • For HIV: people living with HIV, men who have sex with men, male and female sex workers and their clients, transgender people, people who use drugs and their partners, people in prisons or detention centers, refugees, migrants, displaced or mobile populations.
    • For tuberculosis: people living with HIV, people who use drugs, people in prisons or detention centers, refugees, migrants, displaced or mobile populations.
    • For malaria: pregnant women and children underfive, indigenous populations living in regions where malaria is endemic, refugees, migrants, displaced or mobile populations.
• Other vulnerable populations: populations that are more vulnerable in a particular context and that do not fall into the categories mentioned above, including, children and adolescent girls, young girls and women and people living with disabilities.
• Under this call for proposals, L’Initiative will therefore be particularly focused on the promotion and prioritization of measures aimed at:
  • Capacity and skills strengthening of national and community actors: There will be a specific focus on the design of education-based activities, in particular by ensuring the analysis of initial needs, the design and monitoring of training including on the ground training, the quality of training provided, consolidation of knowledge, assessment of targeted skills and the involvement of beneficiaries at all stages and levels of the project.
  • Developing population empowerment strategies to increase the impact of health policies and services, and support services adapted to the needs of key and vulnerable populations.
  • Developing and implementing tailored and targeted advocacy plans for systematic consideration of the needs of key and vulnerable populations in the project’s intervention strategies: L’Initiative encourages lead applicants to: assess and encourage the development of countries’ legislative frameworks, if necessary, to document cases of human rights violations.
  • Effective involvement and representation of key and vulnerable populations in coordination and decision-making mechanisms.
  • Promoting community-based approaches by and for key and vulnerable populations in order to provide them with appropriate services at community level, by mobilizing peer educators, community health workers (CHWs), task shifting or developing outreach interventions (mobile facilities, etc.). Implementing approaches to improve the status and remuneration of CHWs in projects is encouraged.
  • All sexual and reproductive health and rights activities related to the three pandemics and following themes (non-exhaustive list): human papillomavirus (HPV) and associated cancers or any other sexually transmitted infection, combating gynecological and obstetric violence or sexual mutilation, menstrual hygiene, accessibility/quality/availability/acceptability of contraceptive/family planning products and services (including access to safe abortion), comprehensive sexuality education

Funding Information

• The total requested grant amount must cover at least 50% of the project budget and be between €650,000 and €3,500,000.

Duration

• Project duration must be between 36 and 48 months.

Eligibility Criteria

• It must be submitted by a lead applicant, in collaboration with “implementing partners” or “associate stakeholders”:
  • The “lead applicant” is the organization that submits the letter of intent and completes the full proposal if they are pre-selected. Lead applicants are the sole recipients of L’Initiative grants and shall be individually responsible vis-à-vis Expertise France for implementation of the Project.
  • The project lead applicant must be legally registered and have a board of directors/management committee and a registered headquarters in an eligible country or in France. International organizations, with the exception of regional non-state organizations, may not be the lead applicant or an implementing partner of projects. However, they can be associated stakeholders that do not receive any delegated budget.
  • The lead applicant must have been legally registered for at least 3 years at the time of project submission.
• Be implemented in one or more of the 38 eligible countries listed below:
  • Algeria, Benin, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominican Republic, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Laos, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Morocco, Mauritius, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra, Leone, Thailand, Togo, Tunisia, Ukraine, Vietnam.

For more information, visit L’Initiative.