EU seeking Proposals to support Civil Society Development in Georgia

Deadline: 15 May 2020

The specific objective(s) of this call for proposals is/are:

• Lot 1: To strengthen the overall sustainability of the civil society in Georgia by contributing to enhancing its enabling environment, capacity, transparency and accountability at all civil society’s levels in an inclusive way and country wide.
• Lot 2: To contribute to a more favourable ecosystem for social entrepreneurship.
• Lot 3: To increase the local CSOs’competency to better perform their roles as reliable actors of governance and development at the local, regional and national level contributing to inclusive and empowered society in Georgia.
• Lot 4: To reinforce the role of CSOs in tackling climate change and mitigating its adverse effects, including negative impacts of environmental degradation on the public health.
• Lot 5: To promote fundamental freedoms and human rights by supporting CSOs active in the promotion and defence of human rights and democracy.

Priorities

• Lot 1:
  • To promote more enabling policy framework and environment for civil society sustainable development, in particular including diversification of funding for civil society organisations in Georgia thru, among other things, promoting the dialogue with the government of Georgia on support for civil society;
  • To promote corporate social responsibility, including awareness raising and advocacy for the CSR policy framework;
  • To reinforce the relationship between civil society and population by increasing CSOs’ capacities for strengthening links with their constituencies and partners, addressing weak civic participation and encouraging community engagement;
  • To enhance CSOs’ capacities for internal organisation and management, including CSO’s accountability and transparency;
  • To strengthen CSOs’ capacities to conduct advocacy and oversight;
  • To promote empowerment of small and medium sized CSOs across Georgia, including by supporting them through the structure of the Civil Society Regional Hubs established under the Civil Society Sustainability Initiative for Georgia (2015-2021).
• Lot 2:
  • To promote policy dialogue on social entrepreneurship aiming at creating favourable environment for social impact investing, social entrepreneurship and growth of social purpose driven business;
  • To promote development of social entrepreneurship particularly at the regional level.
• Lot 3:
  • To promote sector specific initiatives and actions strengthening capacity of local and regional CSOs to contribute effectively to reinforcement of good governance and authorities’ accountability for socio-economic development results, in particular as concerns women empowerment, social services, justice, migration and road safety;
  • To assist CSOs to make a greater impact in policy dialogue at the local, regional and national level;
  • To contribute to improvement of access to social services (except for rehabilitation of inmates and former prisoners), including supporting access,to and befit from them, of the persons in most vulnerable situations (i.e.: families in vulnerable situation, single/child headed household,persons with disabilities and mental disorders, children, elderly, homeless, persons without breadwinner) should be enhanced through CSOs initiatives and multi-stakeholder partnerships;
  • To promote women’s empowerment and participation in the socio-economic development, including at the local level.
• Lot 4:
  • To contribute to strengthening climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, as well as environmental protection by advocating participatory approach in policy development and decision making involving a wide spectrum of stakeholders including civil society at the local, regional and country level;
  • To enhance competences and capacities of CSOs to better communicate on the fundamental correlated issues of environment degradation, climate change and health.
• Lot 5:
  • To support further advancing of human rights and fundamental freedoms, in particular the protection of the rights of minorities and groups in vulnerable situations, (i.e.: people with disabilities (PwD)), by inter alia effective implementation of the anti-discrimination legislation and through the promotion of their social, economic and cultural rights.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 8, 200, 000.The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
• Size of Grants:
  • Lot 1
    • Minimum amount: EUR 2 500 000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 3 000 000
  • Lot 2
    • Minimum amount: EUR 800 000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 1 000 000
  • Lot 3
    • Minimum amount: EUR 500 000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 1 000 000
  • Lot 4
    • Minimum amount: EUR 800 000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 1 000 000
  • Lot 5
    • Minimum amount: EUR 400 000
    • Maximum amount: EUR 600 000

Eligibility Criteria

Lead applicant(s)

• In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
• For lot 1,2, 3 and 4,
  • Be a legal person;
  • Be non-profit-making;
  • Be a specific type of organisation such as:civil society organisations;
  • Be established in: Georgia or other beneficiary countries of ENI or IPA II regulations, or a Member State of the European Union, or the EEA;
  • 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.
• Lot 5
  • Be a legal person;
  • Be non-profit-making;
  • Be a specific type of organisation such as: civil society organisations;
  • Be established in: Georgia;
  • 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.

Co-applicant(s)

• For lot 1
  • It is obligatory that at least two co-applicants are involved in the action.
  • If the lead applicant is not established in Georgia, the involvement in the action of at least two co-applicants established in Georgia is obligatory, including at least one established and functioning in other regions of Georgia than Tbilisi.
  • If the lead applicant is established in Tbilisi, at least one co-applicant must be established and functioning in other regions of Georgia than Tbilisi.
• For lots 2, 3 and 4
  • It is obligatory that at least one co-applicant is involved in the action.
  • If the lead applicant is not established in Georgia or the lead applicant is established in Tbilisi, the involvement in the action of at least one co-applicant established and functioning in other regions of Georgia than Tbilisi is obligatory.
• For lot 5
  • It is obligatory that at least one co-applicant is involved in the action.
  • If the lead applicant is established in Tbilisi, at least one co-applicant must be established and functioning in other regions of Georgia than Tbilisi.
  • 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.

Affiliated entity(ies)

• 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 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.

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