Deadline: 5-Aug-24
The Education Cannot Wait (ECW) has announced a request for proposals addressing the intersection of climate change and education in emergencies and protracted crises.
The climate crisis is an education crisis. Climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss threaten children’s right to safe, inclusive and quality education, their well-being and their protection. At the same time, education can be a gateway towards adaptation and mitigation.
ECW’s Acceleration Facility provides a flexible financing mechanism to fund strategic initiatives which tackle systemic barriers to quality education. ECW has committed to investing in three new Acceleration Facility partnerships to ensure greater focus and improved responsiveness within the Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises (EiEPC) sector to climate-related risks and hazards in the countries worst affected by the climate crisis.
The RFP seeks proposals to address one of three objectives. ECW has identified these objectives after careful analysis of systemic obstacles and sectoral gaps at the intersection of EIEPC and the Climate Crisis.
RFP Objectives
- Objective 1: Develop and disseminate Global Guidance for the greening of Temporary Learning Spaces
- The challenge: The education sector is making progress in ensuring permanent education structures are more environmentally friendly and resilient. However, there is minimal evidence and guidance to support the greening of Temporary Learning Spaces (TLS), which are a crucial part of education response in emergencies. Currently, there is no established guidance for the EiEPC community. ECW seeks to address that gap.
- The proposition: Under this objective, ECW are looking for an AF partner to develop and disseminate guidance, standards and/or principles for the EIEPC sector to support the greening of TLS. ECW requires the selected AF partner to collaborate with INEE, the Global Education Cluster, and other sector actors (including from the climate and environment sector), to ensure any global tool is adhering to global standards and is as meaningful and relevant to the sector as possible.
- Proposal requirements: The initiative would be expected to include the following steps:
- Capturing good practices from ECW’s programmes and from the wider sector and defining what good greening models look like.
- Developing meaningful, quality global guidance and associated tools on how to procure, establish and reuse TLS (including gender and inclusion considerations).
- Costing greener TLS, including the difference between these and current TLS.
- This includes the financial cost, and the time/effort cost to communities and local organisations in sourcing more environmentally friendly TLS (including considering differing resources/capacity in different contexts).
- Piloting the global guidance and associated tools in a select number of ECW MYRPs and FERs.
- Supporting effective dissemination and capacity development with the wider sector in collaboration with INEE, the Global Education Cluster and other relevant partners.
- Partner requirements: This objective requires an organization with the following strengths:
- Expertise in both Climate and EIEPC, and specifically understanding of the role and use of TLS in EIEPC response.
- Experience of developing global goods in a way that is meaningful to the sector -avoiding the guidance becoming a traditional on the shelf’ product with limited use
- The capacity (themselves or through partners) to field-test any new tools in ECW countries.
- A plan for collaboration and/or partnership with INEE, the Global Education Cluster, and/or other sector actors as essential to the use and uptake of the new guidance.
- Objective 2: Undertake research and advocacy on Loss and Damage and Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises.
- The challenge: Under this objective, ECW aims to address the current gap in education and climate-induced loss and damage evidence, policy, and funding. While non-economic loss and damage is slowly gaining more traction and awareness, education (and specifically Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises) is still largely overlooked in terms of loss and damage. Loss and damage in the education sector can look like lost school days, children never returning to school and losing years of education and future economic opportunities, damaged school infrastructure, lack of protection, forced displacement and psychosocial impacts.
- The proposition: ECW ultimately wants to ensure greater financial commitment to address loss and damage experienced by the EIEPC sector, especially ensuring the new Loss and Damage Fund adequately reflects education and receives a fair share of funding. Decisions around this Fund are progressing quickly, so any grantee(s) would need to act smartly, quickly and politically, and align with ongoing processes.
- To achieve the ambition, ECW are looking to fund a grantee/grantees to do two things: i) to develop new evidence/research; and ii) deliver an advocacy campaign specifically geared to influencing UNFCCC processes and climate member state decision-makers. ECW are not looking to produce a product to influence the education sector – the objective is specifically to influence the climate sector and climate decision-makers.
- The research should build on ongoing efforts, including, for example, UNICEF Innocenti’s Loss and Damage Finance for Children report, Plan International’s report on Loss and Damage, The Loss and Damage Collaboration, IIED’s Non-economic loss and damage: closing the knowledge gap and the recent ODI working paper and World Bank Policy Note.
- ECW are particularly interested in the idea of organisations partnering up to apply for funding under this objective. ECW would positively score organisations that show collaboration across industrial and programme countries, and across the research and advocacy sectors. ECW would especially welcome engagement of relevant climate coalitions.
- Proposal requirements: Proposals will be expected to include the following:
- Knowledge of existing research and activities in this area and understanding of the gaps in loss and damage work on education.
- A clear approach to building evidence on how the EIEPC sector experiences climate-induced loss and damage, including quantifying education loss and damage. Any evidence generation should be proportionate to ECW’s end goal of influencing the climate sector in a timely way, aligned with UNFCCC timelines.
- A focus on countries with ECW programmes.
- Ability to analyse how climate-induced loss and damage interacts with other social and economic issues, such as conflict, poverty, gender, inclusion, food insecurity and displacement, within the lens of education.
- A concrete advocacy plan to turn research into positive outcomes for ECW. This includes influencing climate decision-makers, with appropriate consideration of the political dynamics and advocacy opportunities and mechanisms to achieve this.
- Understanding of UNFCCC, IPCC and World Bank processes, specifically the Warsaw International Mechanism (WIM), the Loss and Damage Fund and the Santiago Network.
- If funding and the organisation’s capacity allow, ECW is open to receiving proposals that include longitudinal research on loss and damage in the education sector, in a few specific countries.
- An inclusive approach to bringing in child voice and participation into any aspect of the delivery of this objective.
- Partner Requirements: This objective requires an organisation with the following strengths:
- Expertise on loss and damage and key financing and policy processes (UNFCCC, IPCC, World Bank processes).
- Experience in climate advocacy including of the political dynamics, opportunities and mechanisms to achieve influence in the climate sector.
- Existing networks with relevant stakeholder groups (e.g. WIM members)
- The ability to translate climate expertise and experience to the EiEPC context, including in close collaboration (or partnership) with EIEPC actors, and/or the ability to translate EiEPC expertise to climate policy contexts.
- A track record of providing credible and quality research and evidence.
- Objective 3: Scale up effective models for locally-led, innovative climate-smart EIEPC programming
- The challenge: ECW is aware that work on climate change and Education in Emergencies and Protracted Crises is a rapidly evolving space. This objective creates an opportunity for partners to further develop/expand exciting new initiatives which could have a catalytic effect for the wider sector. ECW is particularly interested in funding locally-driven solutions and initiatives.
- The proposition: ECW is intentionally keeping the parameters for this objective broad, given a number of innovative, locally-led solutions are being developed in multiple contexts, in response to ever-increasing and differing needs. In the Expression of Interest, the partner should be clear about the specific needs that the initiative responds to, the work and evidence it is based on, and the details of the programmatic solution itself.
- Example areas of focus might include, for example:
- Scaling an education program focused on the intersection of MHPSS, Education and Climate Action. For example, an intervention that successfully uses child and youth-led climate action for climate benefits but also as a therapeutic tool for children suffering from trauma.
- A climate-focused capacity development initiative for teachers in crisis settings.
- Proposal and Partner Requirements:
- The partner would be expected to focus on 1 – 3 MYRP contexts (see Annex A) and collaborate with ECW’s in-country partners.
- Local actors must be directly involved in the proposal.
- The approach must uphold ECW’s strong commitments to Gender, Inclusion and Protection
- The initiative should make clear how the intervention will support global goods – through, for example, developing a replicable model, or producing significant evidence for the sector to build and learn from
- The proposal should clearly state how learning, best practices, and recommendations will be shared with the EIEPC and Climate sectors. There must be a robust learning agenda running alongside the pilot/scaling up, which provides evidence of what works/what doesn’t work.
- The proposal can be a series of different interventions testing the best way to deliver a specific goal e.g. trauma-sensitive climate action.
Funding Information
- The current RFP makes available USD $2.4 million divided across the three areas. The specific amount for each objective has not been predetermined and will depend on the specific proposals. ECW is therefore inviting proposals against a predetermined ‘ceiling amount’ listed below. The eventual allocations will be based on the review of proposals. All applicants should be aware that they may be asked to reduce their overall budget if successful in progressing to the next round.
- Objective 1: Up to 750,000 USD
- Objective 2: Up to 1,200,000 USD
- Objective 3: Up to 750,000 USD
Eligibility Criteria
- This RFP is open to all international and national organizations that can provide the requested goods/services/works and are legally constituted or represented in the country where the services will be delivered. Successful applicants will need to be HACT assessed as being either “low” or “medium” risk (in all localities of implementation, not only at HQ level), be able to register at the United Nations partner portal and pass the core assessment and PSEA assessments. Other parties may receive funds as implementing partners of direct grantees in line with the direct grantees’ policies on sub-grants.
For more information, visit ECW.