Civic Tech Solutions to Strengthen Democratic Governance in South Africa

Deadline: 3-Jul-22

The Charter Project Africa in South Africa has launched a call to support civil society organisations in using civic technology to promote and popularise the African Governance Architecture.

This call will focus on using civic tech solutions to strengthen democratic governance in South Africa. Its main aim will be to support civil society in South Africa to raise awareness about the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance (ACDEG) and, among other things, advocate for its ratification and popularization as an important instrument that can help promoting, monitoring and assessing democratic consolidation and entrenchment of a democratic political culture.

Priorities

• This Call seeks to support civil society in South Africa to raise awareness about and utilise the African Charter for Democracy, Elections and Governance to promote, monitor and assess democratic consolidation and democratic culture as well as to strengthen engagement with SADC and the AGA.
• The mobilisation of citizens’ groups at the various national, sub-regional and regional levels in an inclusive and multi-stakeholder approach should allow for the construction of consensus positions within civil society on the ACDEG and to share them among CSOs and citizens in South Africa as well as with national, sub-regional and regional institutions.
• The concept note must clearly demonstrate how the ACDEG can be used as an instrument in dealing with the democratic challenges pertaining to the themes identified. The concept note should also demonstrate how civic technologies will be used in the course of the project. The proposed projects should also seek to incorporate the following elements:
  • special attention to youth participation
  • a clear focus on gender equality and women’s empowerment
  • identifiable entry points for African Union policy & programming processes

Focus Areas

The following areas of democratic governance are to be considered by applicants:

• Participation in public space & public discourse;
• Electoral cycles and elections
• Political accountability
• Democratic culture and political pluralism;
• Participation of youth and women in electoral processes (as key);
• Responsive, transparent and accountable governance.

Funding Information

• The overall budget available for this Call is EUR 30 000.
• This amount will be allocated between two or three CSOs from South Africa for small grants ranging between EUR10, 000 to EUR 15, 000.
• Each organisation will receive a separate grant which will depend on the number of selected organisations.
• The program will be supported for an implementation period of up to 15 months depending on the proposal (the duration will be confirmed at the time of contract signature). Each grantee will enter a grant contract with the Democracy Works Foundation (DWF).

Geographical Focus: Activities should be implemented in South Africa.

Eligibility Criteria

• The Call will focus on providing support to non-profit organisations (CSOs, NGOs, Associations etc.) active in the civic space and the civic technology ecosystem and in democratic governance.
• In summary, the eligibility criteria are as follows:
  • The organisation must be registered in South Africa;
  • The organisation must be a legal entity;
  • The organisation must be non-governmental, independent of local or regional government;
  • The organisation can be a non-profit organisation, but must – in this case – be strongly committed to advancing civic participation.
  • The organization must be able to sign a grant agreement;
  • The organisation must not have received any unfavorable opinions, either from its own auditors or from those of its donors;
  • The organisation shall have policies and/or practices in place to ensure the ethical management of personally identifiable information;
  • The organisation must not have been judged for fraud, corruption, participation ina criminal organisation or any other illegal activity.
• In addition, the beneficiaries of the call must adhere to several (but not necessarily all) of the following high-level guiding principles
  • The organisation’s activity is positioned to foster innovation, sustainable growth and/or large-scale change in policies, behavior and systems;
  • The organisation has an approach that fundamentally adopts a sustainable balance to solve social and/or economic problems;
  • The organisation has established local, regional and/or national partnerships tooptimize its model and deliver its mission on a largerscale;
  • The organisation hasthe capacity to grow in terms of its ability to manageadditionalresources and the work associated with expansion;
  • The organisation can already show evidence of the impact of its work and canindicate how additional resources will increase itsimpact;
  • The organisation can demonstrate how the intervention supported by the appealwill be sustained.

For more information, visit https://civictechfund.africa/southafrica/