Deadline: 9 November 2017
The European Union (EU) is currently accepting proposals from eligible organisations for its European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) program 2017 to support civil society in its actions to support the protection and the promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms worldwide.
Program Lots and Objectives
- Lot 1: Supporting Human Rights Defenders in the area of land-related rights, indigenous peoples, in the context of inter alia ‘land grabbing’ and climate change
- to reinforce the short and long-term capacities of these HRDs and HRDs’ organisations to do their work on environmental and land issues at local/national level, to take their cases to the relevant national, regional or international human rights bodies and mechanisms and to apply internationally recognised frameworks, safeguards and guidelines in the defence of land and environment, including with respect to exercising their right to due diligence and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC);
- to reinforce their resilience capacities to face severe repression through defamation, smear and stigmatisation at different level, community and public opinion, with a strong gender perspective;
- to support their engagement with State and non-State actors (notably leading responsible business associations and investors)through dialogues and mediation activities toensure the respect of their rights, and to overcome impunity and the lack of access to remedy for victims.
- Lot 2: Fighting against extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances
- to support projects dealing with prevention of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings;
- to support projects promoting accountability for perpetrators and the search for remedy for victims and their families in cases of enforced disappearances and/or extrajudicial killings.
- Lot 3: Combating forced labour and modern slavery
- to promote and support the ratification and effective implementation of the UN/ ILO conventions and protocols related to forced labour as well as other national or regional instruments;
- to facilitate international and regional cooperation(including judicial, police cooperation, etc. ) with the view to prevent and eliminate forced labour practices in the agriculture/forestry sector with special attention to recruitment practices and supply chains;
- to provide protective and accompanying measures for victims and/or potential victims of forced labour and their family as well as human rights defenders in the agriculture/forestry sector;
- to ensure access to remedy for victims, accountability and prosecution of perpetrators;
- to support measures preventing forced labour and to address the systemic and structural vulnerability to forced labour and severe labour abuses of agriculture/forestry related in particular to its labour intensity and seasonal character ;
- to support due diligence by the private and public sectors to respond to the risk of forced labour and identify, prevent, mitigate and account for how they address their adverse impacts in this field.
- Lot 4: Promoting and supporting the rights of persons with disabilities
- to promote and support the ratification, effective implementation and monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and its Optional Protocol,
- to foster partnerships between human rights civil society organisations and disabled peoples’ organisations (DPOs)and/or civil society organizations working for persons with disabilities in order to integrate disability within their wider human rights work.
- Lot 5: Supporting freedom of religion or belief
- to promote everyone’s freedom to believe or not to believe, without any coercion, with a particular focus on countries or situations where individuals are penalised for the act of freely choosing, changing or abandoning their religion or belief;
- to promote the right either alone or in community with others, in public or private, to express or manifest a religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance, including artistic and cultural expressions of belief and enjoyment of cultural/religious heritage;
- to prevent and combat discrimination, intolerance and violence on grounds of religion or belief in all its forms, whether committed by governmental or non-governmental actors. This may include violations of freedom of religion or belief deriving e.g. from traditional practices or discriminatory legislation or practices against women and girls, and/or persons belonging to minorities or other vulnerable groups;
- to enhance mutual understanding and respect between individuals of different faith or none, contributing to inclusive communities and societies accepting diversity and capable of addressing potential conflicts in a peaceful manner.
Size of Grants
Any requested EU contribution must fall between EUR 250,000 and EUR 1,000,000.
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 or a natural person and
- be non-profit-making and
- be a specific type of organisation such as:
- civil society organisations , including non-governmental non-profit organisations and independent political foundations, community-based organisations, indigenous peoples’
- organisations, disabled persons organisations and private-sector non-profit agencies, institutions and organisations and networks thereof at local, national, regional and international level;
- National Human Rights Institutions, Ombudspersons;
- non-profit-making universities and
- Be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary.
- For-profit organisations may also be eligible in exceptional and duly justified cases. Indeed, in situations where registration or receipt of foreign funding as non-profit organisation is made very difficult or might put the entity in danger, civil society organisations may be obliged to register as for-profit organisations to continue operating in the field of human rights. The validity of the justification will be examined by the Evaluation Committee.
- International public-sector organisations set up by international agreements, specialised agencies set up by such organisations and other organisations assimilated to such international organisations (i.e. the International Committee of the Red Cross and the International Federation of National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies) are not eligible under this call for proposals. United Nations agencies are not eligible under this call for proposals.
- No nationality restriction applies to applicants and, if any, to co-applicants and affiliated entities.
- Potential applicants may not participate in calls for proposals or be awarded grants if they are in any of the situations
- In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
- 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.
- 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 co-applicant(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 applicant may hence be:
- Entities directly or indirectly controlled by anapplicant(daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by an applicant(granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
- Entities directly or indirectly controlling theapplicant(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 applicantis 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
- The application procedure consists of two phases:
- Concept notes
- Full applications
- In the first instance, only concept notes must be submitted for evaluation. Thereafter, lead applicants who have been pre-selected will be invited to submit a full application.
For more information, please visit Europeaid and download the guidelines.