Deadline: 11-Jun-21
The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations to submit applications to carry out a project to improve governments’ capacity to interdict illegal wildlife products and to handle confiscated live animals.
For this funding opportunity, INL intends to focus on the illegal trafficking of live animals. Frontline law enforcement officers seize two types of illegal wildlife products:
- Body parts that have already been separated from the animal, such as tusks, horns, blood,
- claws, feathers, organs, hides, or scales; or
- Live animals.
Goals
The goal of this program is to improve governments’ capacity to interdict illegal wildlife products and to handle confiscated live animals, such that their evidentiary valued is maintained and they are kept in a humane and healthful manner.
To achieve this goal, INL seeks to fund programs that will:
- Train frontline law enforcement officers on the handling of seized live evidence.
- Provide technical assistance to improve laws and policies to comply with international best practices on the use of evidence from live animals.
Objectives
Proposed programs must include activities to achieve both of the objectives listed below:
Proposals that cover only one objective will be disqualified. In addition, applicants must explain how they will coordinate with, complement, and not duplicate existing CWT programs in the region. Priority will be given to proposals that include new and innovative strategies.
- Objective 1: Train frontline law enforcement officers on the handling of seized live evidence.
- International best practices for confiscating and handling live animals.
- IUCN Guidelines for the management of confiscated live organisms.
- Biosafety, including preventing the transmission of zoonotic diseases.
- How to support, secure, protect, and humanely maintain living evidence.
- Procedures to collect information from the animals to prepare for a court case.
- Appropriate procedures for transferring live animals to responsible facilities to ensure for their safe quarantine.
- Objective 2: Provide technical assistance to improve laws and policies to comply with international best practices on the use of evidence from live animals.
- Activities may include, but are not limited to:
- Assessment of the laws and policies governing the use of evidence from live animals.
- Data collection on international best practices governing the use of evidence from live animals.
- Updating laws and legal procedures to allow photographs and videos of live animals to be admissible in court.
- Development of evidence retention and disposition standards for live animals, which could include repatriation or the permanent transfer to a more appropriate facility.
- Create standard operating procedures for seizing and maintaining live evidence.
- Training for prosecutors and judges on international best practices on the use of evidence from live animals.
- Facilitate development of standard operating procedures, communication channels, agreements, best practices, etc. when repatriating wildlife to their original habitat and/or country of origin.
Funding Information
- Awards may range from a minimum of $300,000 to a maximum of $1,000,000.
Participants and Audiences
The intended target audiences for this program are law enforcement, border control, customs, wildlife authorities, prosecutors, judges, and other relevant government ministries in the target countries.
Project Expansion
If the project is successful, INL will consider the option of expanding the project to other areas or countries in the region, subject to availability of future funding. Applicants may include in their proposal a brief section outlining how additional funds could potentially be used to expand work into additional activities or countries in future years. Applicants are strongly encouraged to demonstrate how their project might leverage funding through other organizations.
Priority Countries
Applicants may propose work in one or more countries within Africa, Asia, or Latin America. Applicants may also propose work across multiple regions. However, INL will prioritize proposals with activities in countries with wildlife detection dog units including, but not limited to, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia.
Eligibility Criteria
- The following organizations are eligible to apply:
- U.S.-based non-profit/non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
- Foreign-based non-profits/non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
- Applicants must also meet the following requirements to be eligible to apply to this NOFO:
- Demonstrate current country registration in every country in which the applicant proposes to conduct activities, as applicable.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=332814