European Commission: CSOs for Fair, Transparent and Inclusive Elections

Deadline: 28 December 2018

The European Union (EU) is currently accepting proposals from eligible organisations for a grant program entitled “CSOs for Fair, Transparent and Inclusive Elections” to support, strengthen and assist electoral CSOs in Afghanistan.

Objectives

• Objective 1: to promote public participation and awareness on the Presidential and Provincial Councils election process, with specific focus on women and other marginalized groups of the population;
• Objective 2: to support coordination amongst CSOs on matters related to the inclusiveness, transparency and accountability of the electoral process and of elections day;
• Objective 3: to build CSOs capacities on lessons learned from previous electoral cycles.

Priorities Area

The proposed actions are supposed to focus on any or all of the 3 specific objectives mentioned above. The actions should build upon CSOs achievements in the electoral arena to date and lessons learned from previous and current electoral cycles, and further strengthen current national coordination mechanisms by developing activities to meet the above 3 objectives at district level, in particular through the use of sub-granting facilities to grassroots organisations. The actions should in other words concretely aim to coordinate and assist Civil Society efforts in contributing to achieving fair, transparent, inclusive and regular elections and propose clear strategies and action plans as to how reach organisations at grassroots level.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 1 250 000.
• Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
  • minimum amount: EUR 1 250 000
  • maximum amount: EUR 1 250 000

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead applicant
  • In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
    • be a legal person and
    • be non-profit-making and
    • be civil society organisations, including non-governmental non-profit organisations and independent political foundations, media, 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 Afghanistan or in a Member State of the European Union or an accession, potential or official EU candidate country as recognised by the EU, or in a Member State of the European Economic Area or of the OECD 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 and
    • be operational (i.e. already managing a project and/or have an office) in Afghanistan at the moment of the launch of the Call for Proposals.
• Potential applicants may not participate in calls for proposals or be awarded grants if they are in any of the situations
• Co-applicants
  • 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 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.

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/2JVzpAM and download the guidelines.