Deadline: 29-Jun-24
The Bangladesh America Maitree Project, a five-year USAID-funded initiative, is currently calling for EOIs from local organizations to work with them.
The Bangladesh America Maitree Project is a USAID-funded five-year project which is grounded in locally driven strategies to strengthen the capacity of Bangladesh civil society partners and promote broad-based, inclusive, and sustainable development. BRAC implements the Maitree Project in partnership with FHI360 and BRAC USA, and in close coordination with civil society, development partners and the Government of Bangladesh.
The Maitree Project seeks to advance broad-based, inclusive, and more sustainable development through strong local partnerships that complement USAID/Bangladesh’s Country Development and Cooperation Strategy and development objectives. To achieve its goal, the Maitree Project is establishing a flexible grant-making facility offering a range of capacity strengthening options to selected local partners based on participatory organizational assessments that guides technical and organizational capacity strengthening support for each partner. Coupled with grant-making, the project combines capacity strengthening approaches, including relevant tools, tailored action plans, and appropriate levels of support, so that local organizations can advance their missions through achieving their own organizational development goals. For more information, please refer to the project’s factsheet.
Project Objectives
- The project has three main objectives:
- Established a grant-making mechanism managed by a local organization to provide funding to qualifying local recipients through a local, competitive process
- Increase the organizational capacity of recipient organizations to compete for grants and implement locally-led development interventions
- Local organizations collaborate to build networks and develop local solutions to development problems
Thematic Areas
- The Maitree Project endeavors to foster innovative development approaches aimed at catalyzing locally-driven progress. The Project is seeking Expressions of Interest (EOI) from interested organizations seeking grant funding in selected thematic areas.
- Agriculture and Food Security
- Agriculture and food security related grants in year one (2024) will focus on sustaining the productivity of the agricultural sector through investments that foster increasing productivity and resilience. Targeted interventions to male and female producers and other value chain actors will focus on improving technology and management practices by engaging the private sector or through any commercial avenue, expanding access to markets and credit, increasing organizational and market efficiency, and restoration and protection of resilience in production and livelihood systems.
- Specific grants areas may include but not limited to the following:
- Access to quality inputs, such as seed, feed, fertilizer, irrigation, and equipment/machine, etc., encompassing all sub-sectors, such as agriculture, aquaculture, and livestock to increase farm productivity and households’ income.
- Access to extension services to improve access to information, services, and technologies for crop production, post-harvest handling, and marketing, etc.
- Market linkages to improve access to market information, raising awareness of high value market standards, and improving rural-urban market connectivity – to ensure that the producers get better prices.
- Post-harvest loss and waste reduction by improving producers’ knowledge and skills related to post-harvest handling including adoption of technology and practices, improving access to packing and storage facilities (including via linkages to private sector), and strengthening supply chains, and promoting social and behavior change communications in minimizing food waste in the food and hospitality industry.
- Child Rights and Protection
- In year one, Maitree will focus on addressing child marriage, using a child rights, Gender Based Violence (GBV), and protection lens in its areas of intervention. The aim is to focus on the root causes of child marriage, as identified by the applicant, preferably justified with evidence and analysis. Specific areas may include, but not limited to the following:
- Prevention and Protection Measures: community engagement and awareness raising, addressing prevailing gender and social norms, GBV prevention, improving educational opportunities for children, including girls, and economic opportunities for their parents that do not involve child labor, and engaging the local administration and private sector to improve services and support for victims and survivors.
- Strengthening Networks: This may include networks to engage stakeholders, including youth, local leaders, activists, local administration, and elected local representatives to build coalitions and advocate against child marriage and for children’s rights.
- In year one, Maitree will focus on addressing child marriage, using a child rights, Gender Based Violence (GBV), and protection lens in its areas of intervention. The aim is to focus on the root causes of child marriage, as identified by the applicant, preferably justified with evidence and analysis. Specific areas may include, but not limited to the following:
- Education
- Maitree’s education related grants activities in year one will focus on identifying and proposing solutions to challenges facing children, especially girls children and marginalized communities children (i.e. indigenous, dalits, children with disabilities, children with different sexual identity etc.) from pre-primary through young adulthood (youth). The goal is to ensure that children are prepared to enter primary school, advance through the education system where they are prepared to be productive contributors to Bangladesh’s economic growth, can achieve their personal goals and lead more fulfilling lives. The broad focus of the education grants recognizes that improving the learning outcomes for children across all levels of education ranging from pre-primary to higher secondary through quality education will contribute towards building a more capable workforce, promoting climate resilience, contributing to a more just and equitable society that will advance the nation’s advance towards middle income status.
- Enhancing the Quality of Education: Specific areas of focus will include but not limited to enhancing the quality of pre-primary education through higher secondary education, especially for children in marginalized communities who are often more vulnerable to climate change impacts and supporting the out-of-school youth population that falls through the education system.
- Maitree’s education related grants activities in year one will focus on identifying and proposing solutions to challenges facing children, especially girls children and marginalized communities children (i.e. indigenous, dalits, children with disabilities, children with different sexual identity etc.) from pre-primary through young adulthood (youth). The goal is to ensure that children are prepared to enter primary school, advance through the education system where they are prepared to be productive contributors to Bangladesh’s economic growth, can achieve their personal goals and lead more fulfilling lives. The broad focus of the education grants recognizes that improving the learning outcomes for children across all levels of education ranging from pre-primary to higher secondary through quality education will contribute towards building a more capable workforce, promoting climate resilience, contributing to a more just and equitable society that will advance the nation’s advance towards middle income status.
- Health
- The health-related grants in year one will focus on strengthening health systems to improve maternal and Child health, nutrition, Tuberculosis (TB) programs and waste management practices (urban and peri-urban areas). Specific areas of focus are as follows:
- Maternal and Child Health in Hard-to-Reach Areas: Supporting the constructive engagement of partners and families in support of pregnant women and children. This may include but may not be limited to registration of pregnancies, implementing infection prevention measures, promoting healthy practices during pregnancy including safe hygiene and proper nutrition, promoting community-based financing of deliveries, increasing awareness of the importance of skilled birth attendants and pregnancy related complications, development of individualized birth plans, and strengthening linkages with relevant health service delivery centers. In addition, improving maternal and child nutrition for lactating mothers and children up to two years of age is a priority area.
- Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation: Support facility-based and outreach services, improving the quality and equitable coverage of prenatal, antenatal, delivery and postpartum care service with a focus on providing uninterrupted services in the face of shocks/stressors and develop resilience plans for uninterrupted Maternal and Child Health and Nutrition (MCH&N) services in disaster prone or remote areas.
- Tuberculosis Treatment, Control and Awareness: Improving TB treatment outcomes by addressing the nutritional status of TB patients in marginalized communities, increasing community awareness of TB transmission.
- Health System Strengthening for Sustainable Waste Management: Establish a protocol and subsequent capacity development for local government institutes and other interested parties for medical waste management practices including but not limited to medical waste from tuberculosis in urban and peri-urban areas. Monitor infection prevention protocol at various clinics and hospitals within the city corporation/ municipality. Establish a safeguarding protocol for workers involved in waste collection and advocate for the proper disposal of waste from tuberculosis and other medical sources. Engaging the private sector in waste segregation, recycle and reuse initiatives. At the community level, increase awareness of related health hazards, and encourage communities to invest in improving the health and cleanliness of their surroundings.
- The health-related grants in year one will focus on strengthening health systems to improve maternal and Child health, nutrition, Tuberculosis (TB) programs and waste management practices (urban and peri-urban areas). Specific areas of focus are as follows:
- Humanitarian Assistance
- Maitree will focus on disaster preparedness and mitigation issues, in response to climate change related impacts, as a cross-cutting theme across the thematic areas described above. Applicants will align key challenges and locally-led innovative preparedness and mitigation measures as part of the proposed approach during the proposal development phase. Challenges may include, but are not limited to, increased salinity, flooding, cyclones, tidal surges, change in temperature, damage to crop, livestock and fisheries, access to essential health and education services etc.
- Private Sector Engagement
- Large-scale solutions to problems such as poverty, health, education, and infrastructure can be pushed by businesses since they have sufficient resources and experience. Additionally, businesses can promote economic growth by strengthening local supply chains, generating jobs, and developing skills through capacity-strengthening initiatives. These contributions promote inclusive development by strengthening communities and constructing resilient economies.
- Agriculture and Food Security
Duration
- The funding commitment, in the form of a sub-grant, will be for a maximum of three years.
Geographic Focus
- All Bangladeshi organizations that are working in any of the above-mentioned thematic areas and the districts indicated below are invited to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI):
- Barisal
- Khulna
- Rangpur
- Rajshahi
- Sunamganj
- Sylhet
Eligibility Criteria
- All Bangladeshi organizations are encouraged to apply including minority-led, youth-led, and women-led organizations. Eligibility criteria are as follows:
- Organizations legally registered in Bangladesh.
- Organizations having registration from the NGO Affairs Bureau (NGOAB). If organizations do not have the NGOAB registration, they are still encouraged to apply, especially if they fall within any specific group such as those led by women and/or persons with disabilities and/or youth and/or persons with diverse gender or sexual orientation, and/or ethnic people and/or people representing a marginalized or excluded community. Selected organizations will be considered for capacity-strengthening training and assistance, guidance, and support to apply for NGOAB certification.
- Experience working in the aforementioned districts.
- Experience working in one or more of the following thematic areas: agriculture and food security, child rights and protection, education, health, as well as, humanitarian assistance as a cross-cutting sector.
- Experience collaborating with local CSOs (preferred).
- Experience working or engaging with private sector partners in the specified thematic areas (preferred), or/and experience of involvement in commercial activity on their own.
- Demonstrable commitment to gender equality and prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse (PSEA) at both organizational and programmatic levels, as well as the commitment to gender-responsive and inclusive programming.
- Organizations that work with marginalized and vulnerable populations, including women and girls, youth, ethnic and religious minorities, persons with disabilities, and people with diverse sexual or gender orientations are strongly encouraged to apply.
- BRAC and BRAC-affiliated entities are not eligible to apply.
- INGOs are ineligible to apply
For more information, visit USAID.