The European Commission has issued a restricted call seeking concept notes at first stage for projects that would help in promoting an inclusive and empowered society in Bangladesh through facilitating Non-State Actors and Local Authorities’ (NSA-Las) participation in poverty reduction and sustainable development strategies in Bangladesh. This call for proposals also aims to enhance partnerships between NSAs and LAs for improved delivery of services to poor and marginalized groups of the population in both urban and rural areas of Bangladesh.
Specific Objectives
This Call for Proposals is published with the aim of selecting projects which address the issues in line with the following priorities:
– enhance linkages, partnerships and networking between NSAs and LAs for improved delivery of services (including health and education) to the community, in particular to the poor and marginalized groups of the population in both urban and rural areas of Bangladesh;
– support the establishment and capacity building of NSAs networks to develop sustainable community based organizations with a focus on participation in democratic local governance;
– support and enable NSAs to be involved in aid effectiveness monitoring and governance in aid delivery;
– promote advocacy, awareness raising and capacity building activities for NSAs and LAs in areas of concern for the rights of the poor and marginalized people, such as land rights, decent work and labour rights, etc.;
– support the role of NSAs in networks building, social change agents and alternative forums creation to address the issue of corruption and its impact on poverty and also capacity building of NSAs to fight against corruption.
Actions must correspond to at least one and maximum two of the above priorities and should always contain a significant element of capacity building. Therefore a participatory approach and empowering local communities should be ensured.
Financial Allocations
The overall indicative amount made available under this Call for Proposals is EUR 3 800 000. The Contracting Authority reserves the right not to award all available funds. Equally, these amounts could be increased should more funds become available. Where the financial envelopes indicated above cannot be used due to insufficient quality or number of proposals received, the European Commission reserves the right to reallocate the remaining funds to another geographic area or to fund other components of the thematic program “Non-State Actors and Local Authorities in Development”.
Size of Grants
Any grant requested under this Call for Proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:
– minimum amount: EUR 500,000
– maximum amount: EUR 1,000,000
Types of Action
Potential applicants are invited to present all the activities they deem necessary to achieve the objectives of this call for proposals. The actions can be implemented, amongst others means, through: monitoring, training, advocacy, participatory planning, participatory assessment, research, survey, networking, facilitation of meetings, capacity-building, information campaigns, technical assistance, policy development, dissemination of good practices.
Note
This is a restricted Call for Proposals. In the first instance, only Concept Notes must be submitted for evaluation. Thereafter, applicants whose Concept Notes have been pre-selected will be invited to submit a Full Application Form. Further to the evaluation of the Full Applications, an eligibility check will be performed for those which are provisionally selected.
Last date for submitting the concept notes is January 4, 2012.
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