Grants to Support Civil Society’s Role in Education Sector (Nepal)

Deadline: 13-Jun-23

The European Commission (EC) is seeking proposals to improve the participation of civil society in the education sector: to enhance advocacy, to ensure transparency and to increase effectiveness in national educational policy and implementation processes.

The specific objectives of this call for proposals are:

• (Lot 1 – Advocating for Quality Education) Strengthen national civil society engagement in education sector planning, policy dialogue and monitoring transparency and accountability of national education sector policy and its implementation.
• (Lot 2 – Quality Education: leaving no one behind) Strengthen civil society’s role in promoting access to education for all girls and boys.
• For lot 1, linked to the specific objective 1 it is expected that actions will work on advocacy towards more accountability and inclusion of SESP at federal and provincial level. The actions proposed will promote data driven advocacy and accountability through models, studies, research, and promotion of best practices, which can come from other programmes (funded by this call for proposals or others). Multi-stakeholder approaches (academia, CBOs, networks of specific advocacy etc.) will be considered an asset. The actions will support accountability and the promotion of social accountability tools to improve the governance of the education system, including at school and local level.
• For lot 2, linked to the specific objective 2, actions will focus on increasing the access to quality education for socially and economically disadvantaged girls and boys, girls and boys from marginalised groups and girls and boys with disabilities. Recognising that the factors hindering access to quality education for girls and boys from these communities and groups are multiple in nature and cannot be solely addressed by purely “education” interventions, actions under this lot will take a holistic approach to reach the unreached, promoting transformative, local solutions. They will promote behaviour and norm change in communities to increase the appeal of completing education for all children, provide culturally appropriate solutions and tackle opportunity costs of education for the most vulnerable and specifically girls.

Geographic scope: in light of the situation of basic education and its indicators, as well as existing EU cooperation (including the supporting measures mentioned in the background chapter) Madhesh, Karnali and Sudurpashchim provinces are the priority provinces for actions funded under this call for proposals. In addition, 150 local governments of the three mentioned provinces will be selected for the UNICEF EU joint action to support the implementation of the SESP. The list will be available in May 2023 and will be published in the Europeaid website with the call for proposals.

Priorities

• This call has the following 3 cross-cutting priority issues:
  • Promoting Gender equality and social inclusion through Gender / Social Transformative approaches, based on sound analysis of the root causes (Gender sector analysis, disability analysis, community specific analysis etc.), challenging harmful gender norms, promoting meaningful representation, and using SMART5 , sex-disaggregated indicators.
  • Following Human Rights-Based Approach6 (HRBA) encompassing all human rights, whether civil, political, economic, social or cultural. Specific mentions of the use of the HRBA principles at different moments of the action cycle will be an asset.
  • Ensuring knowledge creation and replicability: The action should be sustainable, and have a “multiplier effect”, i.e. a possibility for replication and extension of the outcomes, especially if it applies innovative approaches. To ensure replicability and extension, the action should have a robust monitoring system and adequate documentation.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 1,500,000. The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds.
• Indicative allocation of funds by lot:
  • The financial envelope is allocated as follows:
    • Lot 1- Advocating for Quality Education: EUR 350,000
    • Lot 2- Quality Education: leaving no one behind: EUR 1,150,000
• Size of grants
  • Any grant requested under this call for proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
    • Lot 1- Advocating for Quality Education:
      • minimum amount: EUR 250,000
      • maximum amount: EUR 350,000
    • Lot 2- Quality Education: leaving no one behind:
      • minimum amount: EUR 1,000.000
      • maximum amount: EUR 1,150,000
• Duration: The initial planned duration of an action may not be lower than 42 months nor exceed 48 months.

Eligibility Criteria

• In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
  • be a legal person and
  • be non-profit-making and
  • be a specific type of organisation such as: non-governmental organisation, public sector operator, local authority, international (inter-governmental) organisation as defined by Article 156 of the EU Financial Regulation and
  • be established in Nepal, in a Member State of the European Union or in any countries eligible under the Financing Instrument for development cooperation for the period 2021-202. This obligation does not apply to international organisations.
  • Have minimum 5 years of experience working in the school education sector in Nepal (covering children from 4 to 16 years old) at federal, provincial, local, and/or school level and with beneficiaries and their representatives, as well as in areas of policy dialogue and advocacy, planning and monitoring, good governance, operational research and inclusive education. 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
• Co-applicant(s)
  • The lead applicant must act with at least two (2) co-applicants, but not more than five (5) co-applicants:
    • If the lead applicant is Nepali, it must act with at least two (2) co-applicants, out of which at least one (1) Nepali co-applicant;
    • If the lead applicant is non-Nepali, it must act with at least two (2) Nepali co-applicants.
    • At least one (1) applicant (lead applicant or co-applicant) must be registered as an organisation or network of organisations of people with disabilities, i.e. an organisation representative of people with disabilities and having a track record of dedicated actions on and with people with disabilities.
    • Selection of a particular co-applicant will have to be justified based on the co-applicant’s particular experiences or organisational strengths or other strategic significance in the context of the proposed project.
    • 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.
    • Co-applicants must sign the mandate in Annex A.2 Section 5.
    • 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 (see Section 2.4. of the PRAG).
• 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 coapplicant(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.

For more information, visit EC.