UN Women announces Small Grants for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs)

Deadline: 30-May-21

The Spotlight Initiative Regional Programme for Central Asia and Afghanistan funded by the European Union announces the call for applications for small grants for civil society organizations (CSOs).

Within the framework of Pillar 6 designed to strengthen Civil Society Organizations’ (CSOs) capacities and support a regional women’s movement, the SI will invest in strengthening regional leadership, coordination, knowledge sharing, and networking of women rights organizations to support CSOs’ collective and strategic engagement with governments and other actors within the broader Alliance for Central Asia on SGBV.

With a focus on increasing institutional capacities of grassroots organizations as strong advocates and contributors to the decision-making in Ending Violence Against Women (EVAW) within the context of COVID-19, the SI will provide small grants to CSOs in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

This will be done to advance legislative reform, policy dialogue and advocacy, technical assistance in the adaptation of most effective measures to address sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and social norm change necessary to prevent and respond to SGBV and harmful practices such as bride kidnapping, child, early and forced marriage.

Consequently, the ultimate goal of the SI Regional Programme is that through Central Asia innovations around understanding, preventing and responding to SGBV and harmful practices, the national stakeholders and over 35 million women and girls in the five countries, as well as national stakeholders in Afghanistan, will benefit by creating an environment where there is zero-tolerance for SGBV and harmful practice.

Funding Information

The small grant ranges from US $ 2,500 to US $ 30,000.
The small grants are limited to a maximum of USD 30,000 per CSO per 12-month period and a maximum of USD 60,000 for the lifetime of the CSO. The calculation of the maximum grant amount includes all small grants awarded to the CSO from all UN Women Offices.

Eligible activities

The applicant may apply for a small grant to cover the following activities:

introducing and improving organizational systems, tools, and processes to respond to DV within the COVID-19 context, including service provision to victims of DV and prevention of all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls with the development of relevant knowledge materials;
training of workforce in technical and managerial skills;
strengthening organizational capacity in engagement in follow up procedures to UN Treaty Bodies reporting (preparation of EVAW related submissions, inter-organizational coordination, coalition building, etc) and implementation of recommendations related to EVAW;
strengthening organizational capacity in monitoring and advocating for progress on cases of sexual harassment and violence, including at the workplace in line with international norms and standards; and,
supporting with equipment such as copiers, scanners, printers, laptops and computers as long as the cost of such equipment is limited to 30% of the proposed small grant budget or USD 5,000, whichever is lower, to respond to DV.

Eligibility Criteria

Applications are accepted from organizations from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Small grants are intended solely to fund a limited set of activities and activities aimed at supporting the development or strengthening of the institutional capacity of CSOs, with a particular focus on the prevention and elimination of gender-based violence in the context of COVID-19, including domestic violence and sexual harassment in the workplace.
The applicant may apply if it:
- is a registered CSO in operation for at least 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 a UN organization;
- is not an established CSO with the capacity to be engaged as an IP/RP;
- has sufficient capacity to collaborate with various stakeholders;
- has sufficient financial stewardship, including having adequate financial policies and procedures in place to manage the small grant; and,
- 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).