Deadline: 7 February 2019
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is seeking applications from qualified U.S. and Non-U.S. organizations for a Cooperative Agreement to fund a program entitled ‘Local Governance and Civil Society (LGCS)’.
Objectives & Expected Outcomes
- Objective 1: Strengthen the capacity of targeted municipal institutions to deliver services and be more responsive to citizen needs.
- Service delivery for trash collection, solid waste management, education, and other relevant areas is improved measured by percent coverage, frequency, number of citizens served, public confidence, and other relevant industry standard service delivery indicators.
- Improved technical skills of municipal councils and administrators in public administration.
- Increased access and dissemination of information provided to citizens on municipal services.
- Municipal councils have more effective and transparent internal management processes and systems in place.
- Municipal councils, mayors and municipal-based line ministries communicate, coordinate and collaborate measurably better with each other and citizen groups and civil society.
- Municipal councils meet regularly with their constituents and reflect their recommendations/priorities in municipal plans, budgets and projects.
- Groundwork prepared for domestic resource mobilization (in coordination with USAID’s Public Financial Management activity) and private sector resources leveraged to improve service delivery.
- Objective 2: Build the capacity of citizens, civil society organizations (CSOs), private sector actors, and other formal and informal stakeholders to advocate and hold municipal and related national-level institutions accountable to delivering on their mandates.
- Increased number of citizens participating in public sector planning and decision-making processes.
- Program beneficiaries use organizational performance index to measure improvements.
- Local partners are able to collaborate, aggregate citizen concerns, articulate priorities and develop advocacy plans and proposals.
- Local partners are able to conduct analyses and public opinion research to build an evidence base to inform decision-making and policy dialogues.
- Local partners are better able to communicate, coordinate, collaborate with each other and government institutions to build and reach consensus.
- Local partners develop and implement social accountability tools.
- Participatory planning processes are more inclusive and decisions reflect input of religious and ethnic minority groups, women and youth.
- Objective 3: Strengthen national and sub-national decentralization policies, systems and coordination
- Processes for better coordination between municipalities and Ministry of Local Government clarified and expanded.
- Coordination among national level institutions on implementation of Law 59 and associated regulations improved (including with other implementing partners).
- Improved performance of key ministry functions related to regulating or delivering services at the local level.
- National level CSOs and associations successfully apply the tools and resources, including the organizational performance index, to help advance sub-national governance agenda at the national level.
- Objective 4: Inform Programming through a Robust Learning and Analysis Agenda
- Weekly political updates and analysis (e.g., security environment, policies or decrees passed at the national or local level, changes made to government personnel, protests or demonstrations by citizen groups, upcoming elections, concerns with service delivery (electricity outages, etc) with an annual compilation and analysis of the weekly findings.
- Stakeholder/network analysis conducted in each municipality to identify potential partners.
- Legal analysis of gaps in the decentralization framework and recommendations for improvement, including for the drafting of bylaws and implementing regulations.
- Baseline, mid-term and final assessments for each municipality
- Public opinion research to inform programming and government authorities on how to respond to citizen concerns and measure citizen perceptions over the course of the program. USAID anticipates in addition to the baseline public opinion survey, annual public opinion surveys to measure changes and help drive work plan processes.
- Completed Political-Economy Analysis (PEA) with the data used to inform and/or refine proposed program approaches. USAID anticipates that the PEA will be updated as appropriate.
- Completed studies and/or assessments of Libya’s national and sub-national governance policies and systems and self-reliance metrics.
- Social inclusion assessment(s) and data collection with data applied to refine proposed program approaches to ensure that minority voices including religious, ethnic, women and youth are effectively integrated into the program’s initiatives.
- Completed regular and ongoing national and municipal level context analysis.
Funding Information
Subject to funding availability and at the discretion of the Agency, USAID intends to provide up to $36,000,000 in total USAID funding over a Four (4) year period.
Eligible Applicants
U.S. and non-US organizations may participate under this NOFO. For the purposes of this NOFO, Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) include any incorporated entity, either non-profit or for-profit, other than a governmental organization. All applicants must be physically able to operate in Libya including successfully obtaining needed registrations, permits and access to work in Libya.
How to Apply
Concept Papers must be submitted electronically via email at the address given on the website.
For more information, please visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=312043