UN Women: Responding to the Urgent Needs of women and Girls affected by COVID-19 in Europe and Central Asia

Deadline: 21-Aug-20

The UN Women has announced a call for proposals for the regional project “Responding to the urgent needs of women and girls in marginalized and vulnerable situation exacerbated by the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) in Europe and Central Asia” which consists of a regional component and country components in Kyrgyzstan and Moldova.

This call for proposal is specifically related to the regional component to be implemented at the regional level. As part of the regional component, UN Women will be empowering women to withstand the health crisis and its social and economic impacts, become self-reliant and resilient to future shocks and act as agents of change during and in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic through business and livelihood trainings and support.

UN Women will also support women to improve their skills and capabilities to access sustainable livelihood opportunities and participate in decision-making processes.

The project to be selected under the present call for proposals will support women and young girls in vulnerable situations affected by the COVID-19 crisis to strengthen their business skills and capacities which in turn will (i) improve their labour market fit, secure employment and boost career development opportunities and (ii) create business start-ups and support women to grow their own businesses and create new jobs.

The services to be provided include the following:

• Develop an online ‘bootcamp’ styled business skills development training and mentoring programme (modules, toolkits and guides) and conduct trainings for women owners of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), established women entrepreneurs and new women entrepreneurs to start-up their own businesses (throughout project duration mentoring and coaching will be provided to participants). The modules should include business continuity, contingency planning and coping with financial and business challenges during the COVID-19, and for new women entrepreneurs, modules should include start-up business planning (including e-businesses), innovation (experimenting/incubation), and business management (assets, human resource, financial etc.)
• Guide new women entrepreneurs to establish and launch their start-ups
• Review of the local labour market in selected project countries and identify (i) entry points for women and young girls from vulnerable settings into jobs and (ii) access opportunities by women SMEs/entrepreneurs into business demand-supply chains, including economic recovery schemes by local governments and businesses
• Provide job skills development and support job-matching/placements with local companies, including Japanese companies
• Establish a regional women’s business support network (comprised of a diverse range of partners) for sustainability and upscale of project activities
• Maximize visibility of project activities including an innovative online campaign of how womenowned SMEs and women entrepreneurs are ‘bouncing back’ during and post- COVID-19, and women’s role and leadership in economic and income recovery for families and communities
• Organize regional online webinars/events on topics related to the role of women (including from vulnerable settings) and women-led businesses in COVID-19 response and recovery, bringing together countries under this project and other interested countries from the region.
• Provide pre-and post-training assessments.

Funding Information

• The budget for this proposal should be up to USD 90,000.

Duration

• The foreseen starting date of the project is 1 September 2020
• The end date for completing the project is 31 March 2021

Eligibility Criteria

• Organizations with experience of business innovation, digitalization, experimenting employment skills development and job placements, and/or addressing the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on women’s unpaid domestic and care work are encouraged to apply.
• The project should target women and adolescent girls, in more vulnerable and marginalized situations in Europe and Central Asia, in close consultation with UN Women.
• The target countries will be selected primarily from where UN Women has offices or programme presences (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo (under UNSCR 1244), Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, North Macedonia, Serbia Turkey, Tajikistan and Ukraine).
• A selected implementing partner will be responsible for identifying beneficiaries and should define the minimum number of targeted women.

For more information, visit https://www.unwomen.org/en/how-we-work/programme-implementation/2020/08/responding-to-the-urgent-needs-of-women-and-girls-in-effected-by-the-covid-19-in-eca