Open Call for Proposals: Essential Data Sets on Risk Events and Affected Populations

Deadline: 6-Aug-23

The Complex Risk Analytics Fund is seeking projects that generate vital risk data sets, particularly those relating to major risk events and their impact on affected communities.

By investing in these projects, CRAF’d will enable international partners to better anticipate and respond to crises, thereby safeguarding the lives and livelihoods of those in vulnerable settings.

CRAF’d finances, connects and reimagines the data that saves lives. The international community allocates over $30 billion annually for crisis action in fragile and crisis-affected settings. In the face of escalating challenges, data-driven approaches are vital for improving crisis response.

This CRAF’d Open Call for Proposals aims to address the scarcity of risk data in these settings, equipping crisis actors with actionable insights. With its investments, CRAF’d enables international partners to anticipate, prevent and respond to crises more effectively, safeguarding the lives and livelihoods of vulnerable individuals.

To foster an ecosystem that is sustainable, scalable, and well-governed, CRAF’d partners collaborate based on principles that underpin how data capabilities are used and shared:

• Prioritize the interests of populations in vulnerable situations to leave no one behind in pursuit of the 2030 Agenda and share the conviction that this is only possible with a strong emphasis on broad stakeholder engagement, local capacity building, data/model validation, and expert analysis in the field.
• Unite behind the notion that the CRAF’d ecosystem can only be sustainable if partners share risks, burdens, and benefits.
• Commit to the responsible use of data, including principles of fairness, transparency, and privacy.
• Provide open access to outputs funded by CRAF’d using interoperable and open data standards.
• Incentivize data providers not to exclusively rely on financial support from CRAF’d.

Thematic Focus of this Call for Proposals

• The thematic focus for this Open Call is on essential data sets that provide insights into major risk events and affected populations. Projects should fall into one of the two categories:
  • Primary data sets on risk events and affected populations that focus on capturing information related to:
    • Population and demographics
    • Conflict and violence
    • Weather and climate
    • Public health and diseases
    • Food and nutrition
    • Geography and infrastructure
    • Gender, including Women, Peace, and Security
    • Other: please consult with the CRAF’d Secretariat before applying
  • Composite data sets that provide comprehensive and reliable multi-hazard information.
    • These data sets can combine data from various sectors, geographic locations, and sources to create a nuanced composite view on complex risks events and/or affected populations.

Strategic Focus of Call for Proposals

• The strategic focus for this Open Call is to prioritize projects that provide essential risk data sets as a public good. To this end, projects must demonstrate how they contribute to the following key strategic objectives:
  • Securing essential risk data sets: CRAF’d is committed to securing essential risk data sets as a public good so that everyone, everywhere, can discover, access, integrate and share the data they need. The data sets must play a critical role in improving crisis anticipation, prevention, and response efforts in fragile and crisis-affected settings.
  • Supporting decision-making, programming, and resource allocation: CRAF’dsupported data sets must demonstrate they have an impact on resource allocation, decision-making and programming that reaches people in fragile and crisis-affected settings earlier, faster, and in a more targeted and dignified way.
  • Working across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus: CRAF’d invests in data sets that can be leveraged by stakeholders across the humanitarian-development-peace nexus to comprehensively address complex risks.
  • Fostering sustainable connections and collaboration: CRAF’d strongly encourages joint applications from multiple organizations and partnerships with other organizations in the CRAF’d ecosystem. Collaboration with local organizations is particularly desirable.
  • Enabling impact at scale: CRAF’d seeks to invest in data sets that are either already widely used or address under-researched areas.

Funding Information

• Minimum grant size USD 250,000
• Project duration Maximum 24 months.

Geographic balance and local ownership: Across all proposals, CRAF’d will consider geographic balance of recipient organizations. Local ownership of data sets and inclusion of local knowledge are an advantage.

Eligibility Criteria

• Participating UN organizations, who have signed the CRAF’d Memorandum of Understanding, and Non-UN organizations are eligible to apply for CRAF’d funding through this Open Call.
• Requirements for Non-UN organizations
• Non-UN organizations can access CRAF’d funding either as a sub-grantee through a Managing Agent, or through the CRAF’d direct access modality if suitable, as outlined in the CRAF’d Terms of Reference. The access modality will be determined on a case-by-case basis.
• Regardless of the access modality, non-UN organizations will be required to provide at minimum the following documents:
  • Proof of current valid formal registration as non-profit for the duration of the proposed project in the country where the headquarters of the organisation is located. If registration is done on an annual basis in the country, the organization must have the current registration and obtain renewals for the duration of the project.
  • Proof of a successfully managed and implemented grant of at least the grant size requested from CRAF’d in the last three years, e.g., financial, grant, or annual report.
  • UN reference or donor reference, attesting to satisfactory financial and programmatic management of a grant in the last three years.

Technical Requirements

• For the purpose of this Open Call, a data set refers to a collection of primary and secondary data that can be analyzed and used to generate insights, models, or other forms of knowledge related to complex risks. Data sets can be generated by humans or machines and encompass a wide range of data types.
• Applicants should consider the following technical requirements:
  • Public accessibility: CRAF’d-supported data sets are expected to be accessible to CRAF’d partners and crisis actors at no cost, including through relevant platforms like the Humanitarian Data Exchange. While privacy and security concerns may limit full public access to some data sets, applicants are encouraged to commit to providing open access data sets whenever possible.
  • Formats: CRAF’d supported data sets should utilize non-proprietary data formats. This ensures maximum accessibility and interoperability, facilitating the seamless exchange and utilization of data across different systems and stakeholders. Additionally, data sets should ideally be machine-readable, and projects should prioritize the provision of an application programming interface (API).
  • Temporal dimensions: CRAF’d encourages the provision of both real-time and historical data. To this end, the data sets should go beyond one-off collections and demonstrate a continuous and comprehensive approach.
  • Spatial dimensions: Projects should particularly focus on providing data sets in fragile and crisis-affected settings. This includes a specific emphasis on regional, national, and subnational levels, but ideally not lower than district and/or county level.

For more information, visit CRAF’d.