Deadline: 10-Feb-23
The European Commission (EC) is inviting call for proposals for the Thematic Programme on Human Rights and Democracy (HR&D) to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, democracy and rule of law worldwide through support to civil society initiatives.
It identifies five overarching priorities and key actions to ensure that the EU plays a greater role in promoting and defending human rights and democracy throughout its external action:
- Protecting and empowering individuals;
- Building resilient, inclusive and democratic societies;
- Promoting a global system for human rights and democracy;
- Harnessing the opportunities and addressing challenges of new technologies;
- Delivering by working together.
Objectives
- Aligned with the selected priorities of the Human Rights and Democracy country strategy identified by the EU Delegation to South Africa and EU Member States, the general objective of this call is to protect and empower individuals.
Lots
- Lot 1: Elimination of Child Labour
- Against this background, the specific objective of lot 1 is to strengthen the work done by Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to prevent and eliminate child labour, forced labour and human trafficking.
- Priorities under this lot:
- Monitoring, preventing, remediating and raising awareness about child labour, including links with human trafficking, in the targeted countries (South Africa, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Zimbabwe),
- Strengthening of legal and regulatory frameworks and the National Action Plans for the elimination of child labour, in targeted countries, including, if necessary, recourse to litigation,
- Building capacities of labour unions, the private sector and civil society to prevent the use of child labour and forced labour by embedding standards of responsible business conduct in business operations and supply chains including implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.
- Lot 2: Human Rights Defenders (HRDs)
- Against this background, the specific objective of lot 2 is to enhance a safe and enabling environment for civil society promoting and protecting human rights defenders.
- Priorities under this lot:
- Provide short, medium- and long-term support, protection and defence of human rights defenders, including access to remedies and justice,
- Monitor, support and strengthen the national framework for the protection of human rights defenders and civil society organisations,
- Build capacities of Human Rights Defenders and civil society organisations to increase digital security and online safe space,
- Lots 2 Actions must take place in South Africa.
Funding Information
- Lot 1: EUR 700,000
- Lot 2: EUR 1,000,000
- Lot 1: Child Labour
- Minimum amount: EUR 300 000
- Maximum amount: EUR 400 000
- Lot 2: Human Rights Defenders
- Minimum amount: EUR 350 000
- Maximum amount: EUR 500 000
- Lot 1: Child Labour
- Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and Maximum percentages of total eligible costs of the action:
- Minimum percentage: 50 % of the total eligible costs of the action.
- Maximum percentage: 95 % of the total eligible costs of the action
Type of Activities
- Under Lot 1:
- Information dissemination, awareness raising and capacity building activities, including developing with children gender-sensitive and age-appropriate online and offline information on acceptable and unacceptable forms of work
- Capacity building activities on UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and responsible businesses
- Monitoring activities involving community based organisation, workers and unions,
- Collection and compilation of disaggregated data,
- Research, investigation, local evidence-based knowledge building
- Facilitation of access to effective remedy for victims, including through non-State grievance mechanism; engagement with national and international state and non-state judicial bodies,
- Advocacy with EU institutions and global human rights actors
- Support local CSOs and social partners to build gender-sensitive expertise on child labour
- Advocacy campaigns both state and corporate actors in eliminating child labour focusing on prevention, identification, monitoring and remedial measures of companies,
- Advocacy activities to influence policies and laws required to combat child labour in formal and informal setting
- Alliance building among civil society actors,
- Provision for rehabilitative and reinsertion measures for children victims of child labour including psychological and medical assistance (including sexual and reproductive health)
- Under Lot 2:
- Capacity building activities, including digital and legal capacities and expertise of individual human rights defenders and civil society organisations;
- Collection of disaggregated data and support to research to inform policy design, implementation and monitoring
- Capacity-building through trainings of civil society organisations active in the human
- Rights/democracy field and of human rights defenders;
- Awareness-raising and communication campaigns to inform on specific democracy/human rights issues;
- Promoting inclusive and strategic partnerships, networking and cooperation with CSOs
- And other relevant stakeholders or among CSOs;
- Organisation of exchange and dissemination of best practice
- Advocacy, lobbying and development of strategies by civil society organisations to push for legal reform and to influence policy-making facilitation of access to effective remedy for HRD, including through non-State grievance mechanism;
- Engagement with national and international state and non-state judicial bodies;
- Access to justice and litigation,
- Coalition building and networking amongst different civil society organisation;
- Engagement with media and online/off line information.
- Sub-granting to local registered and non-registered civil society organisations and capacity building to civil society organisations or initiatives working on human rights issues.
Eligibility Criteria
- Lead applicant(s)
- In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
- Be a legal person and
- Be non-profit-making and
- be a civil society organization (as per Article 46 of the NDICI Regulation, civil society organisations embrace a wide range of actors with multiple roles and mandates which includes all non-State, not-for-profit independent and non-violent structures, through which people organise the pursuit of shared objectives and ideals, whether political, cultural, religious, environmental, social or economic. Operating from local, national,regional and international levels, they comprise urban and rural, formal and informal organisations).
- Civil society organizations include, but are not limited to: Nongovernmental organisations, organisations representing indigenous peoples, women’s and youth organisations, diaspora organisations, migrants’ organisations, local traders’ associations and citizens’ groups, cooperatives, employers’ associations and trade unions (social partners), organisations representing economic and social interests, organisations fighting corruption and fraud and promoting good governance, civil rights organisations and organisations combating discrimination, local organisations (including networks) involved in decentralised regional cooperation and integration, consumer organisations, environmental, teaching, cultural, research and scientific organisations, universities, churches and religious associations and communities, philosophical and non-confessional organisations, the not-for-profit media and any non-governmental associations and independent foundations, including independent political foundations, and
- Be established in any country, and
- Be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the coapplicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary
- 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 itself.
- In addition to the categories, the following are however also eligible: International organisations, including United Nation Agencies are eligible as co-applicant.
- Co-applicants must sign the mandate.
- If awarded the grant contract, the co-applicant(s) (if any) will become beneficiary(ies) in the action (together with the coordinator)
- In addition, please note that contracts cannot be awarded to or signed with applicants included in the lists of EU restrictive measures.
- Affiliated Entities
- 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 firsttier 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, associatio) as the proposed affiliated entities.
For more information, visit European Commission.