Call Reference No: 2841/02/23

Project: STRENGTHENING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY FOR GENDER EQUALITY IN WESTERN BALKANS AND MOLDOVA (GENDER BUDGET WATCHDOG NETWORK, PHASE II)

Financed by: Austrian Development Agency and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Implementing partners: Centre for Research and Policy Making, Gender Alliance for Development Centre; Centre for Civil Society Promotion; Kosovo Women’s Network; Women Action; Gender Knowledge Hub, Keystone Moldova

The Gender Budget Watchdog Network (GBWN) announces a public Call for Applications for Capacity Building and Sub-Granting in Gender Responsive Budgeting and Resilience Response by the Gender Budget Watchdog Network from N. Macedonia, Serbia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and Moldova.

Project background

Governments have yet to fully implement commitments to gender-responsive budgeting (GRB) and to institutionalize GRB throughout the budget process. Additionally, gender analysis and a gender-transformative approach to climate change in the Western Balkans (WB) and Moldova is limited. Meanwhile, while the engagement of civil society on gender and climate change, respectively, has increased, only a few crosscutting initiatives on   gender equality and climate change have existed. CSOs and policymakers still lack knowledge, methodologies, and skills in GRB, particularly related to climate change and resilience response financing, as demonstrated during the COVID-19 pandemic when the scarcity of capacities for gender transformative resilience response was more than obvious. [1]

The overall objective of our joint Project is to improve public commitments for gender responsive climate action and increase available financing to implement gender-responsive climate action in the WB region and Republic of Moldova.

The anticipated Project outcomes include to:

• Strengthen visibility and international recognition of the work of the Gender Budget Watchdog Network;
• Increased CSO capacities to use GRB tools watch-dogging climate change policy and financing;
• Improve CSO participation in policy and budgeting processes by using gender budget watchdog;
• Improved availability of tools for increased government accountability, particularly in resilience response, climate change financing and gender responsiveness of the climate change policy framework.

Call for applications

As the advocates of social justice and equality, it is crucial that CSOs have a deep understanding of gender-responsive budgeting and how the governments should apply it to create more equitable societies. Therefore, with this call, we invite civil society organizations from the WB and Moldova to submit a project concept note for the following types of grants.

National Grants – Two (2) grants will be awarded per country, with the maximum amount of €8,000 per grant. Projects must be completed in a period of up to eighteen months from the date of the signature of the contract.

Regional Grants – Two grants will be awarded with the maximum amount of €25,000 per grant. Projects must be completed in a period of up to twenty-four months.

In total 16 grants (2 per country and 2 regional) will be provided under these grant schemes.

The concept note should relate to gender-responsive budgeting and resilience response funding, including gender analysis to inform expenditures, monitoring expenditures using gender impact analysis, or using other GRB tools. Potential issues that projects may focus on may be, but not necessarily limited to:

• Energy crises
• Security crises emerging from the Ukrainian-Russian conflict
• Food crises
• Emergency and disaster response
• Environmental crises
• Effects of rising cost of living on gender equality

After selection, the representatives of each of the selected organizations will have to commit to attend three training modules on gender responsive budgeting where they will develop their knowledge regarding different GRB tools. This knowledge should then be used to develop a full project proposal with tailored assistance (mentoring guidance) from gender budgeting experts and mentors from GBWN. Two of the training modules are available online on the GBWN e-academy (Basic GRB and Advanced GRB), designed specifically for CSOs. The third training on “Monitoring Resilience Response” will be organized in-person in Montenegro from 16 to 19 May 2023. The applying organizations will need to nominate one representative to attend and complete these trainings, specifying the attendee of the Montenegro training during the application process. After attending these trainings, the organizations will be invited to submit full proposals for funding.

Eligibility of applicants

Legally registered CSOs from all 7 countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia^[2], Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia can apply. This includes, preferably, but not necessarily:

• Women’s rights organization – organizations that work furthering women’s rights, as well as those that have an intersectional approach in working with diverse women, such as rural women, women with disabilities, the poor, and persons of different sexual orientations and gender identities;
• Think tank organizations – especially those working on relevant to EU accession reforms in education, aging, youth, public administration, and public finance reforms, among others;
• CSOs working on public finance (budget or procurement issues) – dealing with public finance, budget monitoring, and public procurement monitoring;
• Environmental organisations – dealing with environmental agenda(s);
• Men’s organizations – organizations active in gender equality and issues faced by men;
• Organizations working on implementing UN Resolution 1325 and the women, peace and security agenda.

To be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant and its partners must:

• finish the two online modules of training and commit to participate in the third training in Montenegro with physical presence (all travel and training costs will be paid by the organizers);
• be a legal person;
• be non-profitmaking;
• be registered/ established at least two years before the publication of this Call;
• be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the project with their partners, not acting as an intermediary;
• be willing to undergo a participatory Organization and Advocacy Capacity Assessment if selected to receive a grant, to develop a Capacity Development Plan based on the assessment findings and related to the proposed project, and work to implement it as part of the project; and
• for the Regional grants at least 3 CSOs from 3 different countries must be part of the consortium, and each of the 3 CSOs must satisfy the eligibility criteria above.

Number of applications and grants per applicants

The lead applicant may not submit more than 1 application under the national call for applications.

However, a lead applicant for a national grant may be a partner in 1 other application of the regional call at the same time.

The lead applicant may be awarded more than 1 grant under this call for applications (once under the national sub-granting scheme, and second as a partner under the regional sub-granting scheme).

LIST OF REQUIRED DOCUMENTS FOR CONCEPT NOTE STAGE OF APPLICATION

The following documents must be submitted at the Concept Note Stage:

• Filled in Application Form and Concept Note (Annex 1);
• The statute of the CSO and each CSO partner (in regional grants);
• Financial statement for the last two years;
• Proof of Registration.

TIMELINE

CONCEPT NOTES EVALUATION CRITERIA

As part of the administrative evaluation, the Consortium reserves the right to verify information and documents submitted by applicants, with authorized providers of such services and / or state institutions.

The concept notes will be evaluated against criteria set out below. The concept notes will receive an overall score out of 30 maximum points using the breakdown in the evaluation grid below. The evaluation criteria is divided into headings and subheadings. Each subheading will be given a score between 1 and 5 as follows: 1 = very poor; 2 = poor; 3 = adequate; 4 = good; 5 = very good.

SUBMISSION AND DEADLINE

The completed application form, concept note, and documents should be sent directly to the Learning and Grants Manager of GBWN – Elena Acevska on the following e-mail address: acevska@crpm.org.mk no later than 07.04.2023 COB.

[1] For more details please refer to the publications of GBWN: https://gbwn.net/en/publications/

[2] Law on Associations and Foundations (Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia, No. 52, dated 16.04.2010) Закон за здруженија и фондации (Службен весник на Република Македонија, бр.52, од 16.04.2010)