Deadline: 15-Jul-21
U.S. Embassy Nouakchott’s Program and Grants Office (PGO) of the U.S. Department of State has announced a Request for Statements of Interest (RSOI) from organizations interested in applying for funding for program proposals that promote Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ESF/ARDF).
Objectives
Programming supported with ARDF resources should address the following program objective:
- Support protection from, mitigation of, and responses to human rights violations and abuses, in particular human rights violations affecting the most vulnerable, by strengthening human rights frameworks, institutions, and oversight.
- Support local and international human rights organizations and institutions to promote human rights systems, policies, and protection, with a focus on women and youth.
- Strengthen the capacity of community-based organizations, including faith-based organizations, and resident, vendor, or other associations, through civic education and citizen participation to advocate for human rights and democratic norms that advance public involvement in civic life.
Under this program objective, applications should propose programs that aim to further Mauritania’s democratic governance by increasing respect for gender equality and children’s rights – an effort that will serve to create a more inclusive society. This will be done by implementing activities which will support two important instruments which the Mauritanian government has designed to improve its protection system: the National Strategy for the Protection of the Child for 2020-2025 (SNPE in French) and the (draft) Law for the Fight against Violence Inflicted on Women and Girls.
- To support the SNPE, proposed activities should plan to execute workshops to design regional action plans recommended by the SNPE. This is an important component for the delivery of comprehensive protection. These action plans will promote an enabling political environment, reinforce the protection system of the child, including children with disabilities, at community, departmental, regional, and national levels, and create a pathway towards an improved system of protection data collection. These workshops will:
- Identify regional prevention and awareness-raising priorities.
- Design regional action plans for prevention, awareness-raising, and emergency preparedness. All these activities must take into account all children, including children with disabilities.
- Mobilize and reinforce community protection structures such as women’s groups, Elders, community-based associations, and host-families.
- To support the draft Gender law, proposed activities should spearhead a large awareness raising effort – through workshops and campaigns, in print and in social media – to amplify understanding of the provisions of the new law, which will clarify legal definitions of violence against girls and women. To this extent, proposed programs should plan to:
- Organize the largest dissemination efforts possible to bring knowledge of the law at all administrative levels: national, regional, and municipal. This dissemination effort will include working closely with religious leaders and other civil society actors.
- Adapt all provisions of the law in appropriate digital and media supports in local languages to ensure that girls and women have access to accurate and diversified content, so as to further their understanding of the law.
- Work with survivors to organize themselves, disseminate knowledge of the provisions and share experiences to model responses and motivate girls and women to seek justice.
- Disseminate provisions of the new Observatory for the Rights of Women and Girls (ONDFF in French)
- Provide capacity-building for key leaders of the ONDFF
- Contribute to setting up a database on violence against women and girls.
Funding Information
- Award amounts: awards may range from a minimum of $100,000 to a maximum of $200,000
- Length of performance period: 12 to 24 months
- Number of awards anticipated for ARDF: 2 awards.
Participants and Audiences
The target audiences should be vulnerable children, girls and women, government officers, civil society actors, human rights defenders, community leaders, and the public (youth and women).
Eligibility Criteria
- The following organizations are eligible to apply:
- Not-for-profit organizations, including think tanks and civil society/non-governmental organizations
- Educational institutions
- Foreign Public Entities (FPE) for example: Public International Organizations and Governmental institutions)
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=333872