EU Call for Proposals: Supporting Enhancement of Professional Reporting and Free Flow of Information in Belarus

Deadline: 8 July 2019

The European Union (EU) is currently accepting proposals from eligible organisations for a program entitled “Supporting Enhancement of Professional Reporting and Free Flow of Information in Belarus”.

Objectives

• The global objective of this call for proposals is to contribute to the diversification and quality improvement in news gathering and dissemination underlying the promotion of pluralism and democracy in the Belarusian society.
• The specific objectives of this call for proposals are to increase media professionals’ capacities in quality reporting; supporting financial self-sustainability of non-state media for them to provide for their core activities; as well as to enhance the capacities of the entities working in favour of free and diverse flow of information in Belarus through advocacy and policy dialogue.

Priority Issues

The priority of this call for proposals is to mitigate the impact that adopted amendment to the law “On the mass media” has already produced or will produce on the activities of non-state media in Belarus.

Moreover, the following cross-cutting elements are considered of added value and must be taken into account in designing the action:

• Gender equality aspects
• Rights-Based Approach and needs of vulnerable groups;
• Promotion of good governance of public policies
• Environmental concerns

Size of Grants

Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between EUR 500,000.00 and EUR 1,000,000.00.

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead applicant
  • In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
    • be a legal person or an entity without legal personality
    • be non-profit-making and
    • be a specific type of organisation such as: civil society organisations, including nongovernmental non-profit organisations and independent political foundations; community based organisations, and private sector non-profit agencies, institutions and organisations, and networks thereof at local, national, regional and international level and
    • be established in eligible countries specified in Article 9(1) of Regulation (EU) No 236/20149. Entities without legal personality must be based/have strong links and operational capacities in Belarus and respect the same rules of nationality.
    • For British applicants: Please be aware that eligibility criteria must be complied with for the entire duration of the grant. Unless sector-specific eligibility rules provide otherwise if the United Kingdom withdraws from the EU during the grant period without concluding an agreement with the EU ensuring in particular that British applicants continue to be eligible, applicants will cease to receive EU funding (while continuing, where possible to participate) or will be required to leave the project on the basis of the grant agreement.
    • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the coapplicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary.
  • The eligibility criteria stipulated above do not apply to third party support (sub-granting) recipients; they can be any type of organisations.
  • Potential applicants may not participate in calls for proposals or be awarded grants if they are in any of the situations listed.
• 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.
• 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.

How to Apply

In order to apply for the grants, applicants have to register themselves in PADOR, an on-line database via given website.

For more information, please visit https://bit.ly/2P1izTq and download the guidelines.