Deadline: 16 August 2019
The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict Stabilization Operations (CSO) is accepting proposals for its program entitled “Political Instability Risks in the Western Balkans”.
Project Objectives and Activities
Election Interference
- Design and conduct surveys to measure external malign influence, to include disinformation attempts and foreign financial influence.
- Collaborate with CSO to create elections toolkit by incorporating new methodologies informed by survey insights and data collected.
- Create tool that tracks cyber and financial influence trends in target countries.
- Administer the toolkit and design action to disrupt or blunt malign influence.
Chinese Destabilizing Economic Influenceand Political Leverage:
- Survey and centralize existing unclassified local-languagedata sources, databases, surveys, and reports including from other bureaus, agencies, think tanks.
- Identify data gaps; build out and compile new data from untapped, credible sources.
- Identify destabilizing activities by Chinese private and public actors, such as digital dominance, unsustainable lending, intensive infrastructure investment in one economic or industrial sector,environmental degradation, and monopolization of mineral resources.
- Identify and analyze any correlation between Chinese economic initiatives and increased political and economic leverage over Western Balkan governments by China.
- Identify concessions and their monetary value granted by Western Balkan governments to Chinese firms, and compare the benefits Chinese firms receive to benefits granted to other large foreign companies.
- Determine possible indicators to measure the impact of interventions and implications for U.S. and European strategic interests, including on the Western orientation of the Western Balkans.
Funding Information
CSO expects to award one or multiple cooperative agreements based on this NOFO and in an amount not to exceed the total ceiling amount of $1,133,650. The period of performance is 18 months with an anticipated start date of October 2019.
Regional Geographic Focus
Applicants should design a program that is regional in scope that includes all (or nearly all) of the following countries of the Western Balkans: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia.
Eligibility Criteria
- Applicant must have acute awareness of conflict-related sensitivities in the Western Balkans through prior work in the Western Balkans or through thematic expertise.
- Applicants are encouraged to partner with relevant organizations with the ability to execute such programming throughout the Western Balkans.
How to Apply
Applicants can apply via given website.
For more information, please visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=319054