Small Grants for CSO Working towards Women Upliftment in Moldova

Deadline: 24-May-21

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women) is pleased to launch a call for applications for the Small Grants for Civil Society Organizations (CSO) under the Eliminating Violence Against Women and Girls (EVAW) and Women in Leadership and Governance (WILG) Areas.

Under this call, UN Women intends to support the organizational development of civil society organizations at local and national level to enable them to advocate for elimination of violence against women and girls and advance gender equality and women’s empowerment.

The envisaged grants will bring a trans-formative change to the CSOs that will be supported to develop gender-sensitive internal policies and integrate gender equality in their internal structures and will subsequently promote the culture of tolerance, equality, and non-discrimination in the country.

Small Grants are intended exclusively to finance a limited range of eligible activities to support the development or strengthening of CSOs’ institutional capacities.

Funding Information

For the purposes of this call, UN Women’s small grants are limited to a maximum of USD 10,000 per CSO per 6-month period.
The implementation of the small grant must be completed by 31 November 2021 for the purposes of this call.

Eligible Activities

The purpose of small grants is to support the organisational development of the applicant CSO and NOT to finance the delivery of a programmatic activity. The applicant may apply for a small grant to cover the following type of activities:

Introducing and improving organizational systems, tools, and processes (GovernanceManagement Structure and Financial and Administrative Management areas): Indicative activities could be but not limited to the following:
- Analysis and adjustment of the organization’s Statute, especially in the light of latest legislative modifications (for ensuring transparent oversight of the organization decision making; update the roles of the board and audit committee, etc.);
- Development/adjustment of organization’s and updating job descriptions, etc.;
- Development of organization’s Strategy and Activity plan with integrated gender equality perspective for at least the period 2021-2023;
- Development of a Gender sensitive Communication, PR and Visibility strategy;
- Development of a Manual of internal policies and procedures of the organization, or separate policies and procedures on areas like:
  - human resources (employment of staff, contractual services, leaves, payments, professional development, performance evaluation, bonuses, etc.);
  - data privacy and data protection;
  - code of conduct for staff and partners, inclusively on prohibition of sexual exploitation and abuse, and sexual harassment; non-discrimination and gender equality;
  - filing of documents;
  - transparent financial management (reporting, auditing, payments, etc.);
  - transparent and efficient procurement (procurement plan, ceilings, announcing and evaluation of offers, etc.), by integrating gender equality perspectives;
  - anti-fraud and anti-corruption policies/provisions;
  - conflict of interests, etc.
- Development of advocacy strategy and advocacy plan;
- Development of fundraising strategy;
- Website development or upgrading.
Building capacity of workforce in overall technical/managerial skills: Participation in national and international trainings for strengthening the technical and managerial capacities of the staff of the organization. Tentative training areas could be but not limited to: project writing, project management, results-based management, financial management for CSOs and fundraising, public communication, advocacy, volunteering, languages/computer literacy, etc.
Building capacity of workforce to support stronger movement towards gender equality and women’s rights: The organizations may attract external expertise to build capacity and skills of its staff and volunteers to promote effectively gender equality and women’s rights on community/regional/national level on topics including, but not limited to:
- Gender equality and women’s empowerment concepts, principles and agenda, Gender Based Violence (GBV) and Violence against Women (VAW), Women in Leadership and Governance, Women in Peace and Security (WPS), Gender Mainstreaming in policies and beyond, etc.
- Conducting situational analysis preceding the interventions on local level; community participatory approach in addressing gender issues and developing local Action Plans aligned with national commitments (national policies/plans/strategies) to end violence against women or advance women’s participation in leadership and governance;
- Applying into practices of comprehensive human/victim-centered, multi-disciplinary, “do not harm”, “leave no one behind” and innovative approaches;
- Developing/enhancing strategically focused advocacy, lobbying, communication and media campaigns to address gender stereotypes and harmful practices related to GBV and domestic violence issues, but also related to women’s role and participation in leadership and governance (including conceptualizing and conducting awareness raising campaigns to effectively address misconceptions and gender stereotypes and biases, transform attitudes, beliefs and societal norms);
- Involving women activists/platforms, unofficial networks and partnering with local public administrations in protection and promotion of women’s rights;
- Acting as watchdogs to monitor survivors’ rights implementation into practice, gender mainstreaming by national and local authorities, CSO’s contribution to changing the societal perception on the roles women and men play in society and within the family, and in advocacy efforts to support gender sensitive policy making; etc.

Eligibility Criteria

The applicant must be a Civil Society Organization (CSO) legally established and operating across the country. The applicant may apply if it:
- is a legally registered CSO in operation for at least 3 (three) years;
- is not on the Consolidated UN Security Council Sanctions List;
- is not being investigated for fraud, corruption, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or other wrongdoing;
- has not had funding received from UN Women entirely or partly written off by UN Women;
- is not currently engaged as an Implementing Partner (IP) or Responsible Party (RP) for UN Women;
- has not been engaged as an IP/RP for UN Women at any time after 21 November 2019;
- is not a government entity;
- is not an UN organization;
- is not an established CSO with the capacity to be engaged as an Implementing Partner/Responsible Party (an organization could be a Responsible Party if at the moment it has the internal capacity well developed and all the mandatory policies in place: anti-fraud policy; Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (SEA) policy; Internal control framework; procurement policy);
- has sufficient capacity to collaborate with various stakeholders: public, private and/or development partners (implemented at least 3 projects or initiatives);
- has sufficient financial stewardship, including having adequate financial policies and procedures in place to manage the small grant (has a minimum capacity to manage financial resources);
- past performance has been deemed satisfactory by UN Women (if it has received small grants previously or been engaged as an IP/RP before 21 November 2019);
- is committed to work on advocacy for gender equality and eliminating violence against women and girls,
- being a member organization of the National Coalition Life Without Family Violence will be a strong asset.
The applicant must be operating in one or more of the following areas:
- Human rights and Women’s empowerment;
- Ending violence against women and girls;
- Support to women living or affected by HIV and women from key population;
- Non-profit organizations which are delivering essential services for women survivors of violence but not limited to;
- Women, Peace and Security;
- Women’s leadership and political participation;
- Non-profit women-led organization;
- Non-profit youth-led organizations;
- Community-based organization;
- Working with women from vulnerable groups (Roma women, women with disabilities, etc.)