Grant Application Guidelines ROUND 2

Transcription

1 Grant Application Guidelines ROUND 2 Civil Society in Action for Monitoring and Influencing the Provincial Budget Process Through Evidence Based Advocacy Sub Granting Executive Organization: Oxfam In Afghanistan Deadline for submission of the full proposal: 15/02/2019 Reference External Actions of the European Union, CSO LA/2016/ All The CSOs that have been part of the facilitated first phase in the CITIZEN STATE Project are eligible to submit their proposals for small-scale advocacy projects aiming to improve health and education services in the target provinces of Takhar,Herat and Nangarhar. Applications will not be accepted later than 15/02/2019 to Grants@oxfam.org

2 Table of contents 1. Sub Granting Scheme (SGS) Sub Grants to CSOs for Monitoring and Influencing the National Budget Process Through Evidence Based Advocacy Background Objectives of the CALL and priority issues Financial allocation provided by the contracting authority 2. Rules for this call for proposal 2.1 Eligibility Criteria Eligibility of applicants Administrative/eligibility criteria Proposals criteria Duration The project/campaigns themes Location None permissible actions Coverage of costs Contract award procedures Monitoring and Evaluation Visibility Eligibility of costs that be included 2.2 How to apply and the procedures to follow Application forms Where and how to send applications Deadline for submission of applications Further information about application 2.3 Evaluation and selection of application 2.4 Notification of the contracting Authority s decision Content of the decision Indicative timetable 3. Monitoring and reporting Qualitative Monitoring and Reporting Financial Monitoring and Reporting on the progress of the project Instalment Payments 4. List of annexes Application Template Financial Template Visibility plan Payment Request form

3 1.SUB GRANTING SCHEME (SGS) - SUB GRANTS TO CSO-S FOR MONITORING AND INFLUENCING THE PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL BUDGET PROCESS THROUGH EVIDENCE BASED ADVOCACY TRAJECTORIES IN AFGHANISTAN BACKGROUND Oxfam as the lead and APPRO,PTRO,AICS and ACSFO as the co- applicants are implementing the CITIZEN STATE Project in Afghanistan financed by the European Union. This project is funded under European Instrument for Human Rights, Gender and Civil Society component Reference External Actions of the European Union, CSO LA/2016/ According to the EU country roadmap for engaging with Civil Society organizations in Afghanistan, EU financial support should aim at improving the meaningful and structured participation of CSOs in domestic policies and to increase local CSO s capacity to perform their roles as independent development actors more effectively. The overall objective of the project is to strengthen the engagement and mobilization of both civil society organizations (CSOs) and Local Authorities (LA) for more responsiveness, efficiency, transparency and accountability in the provision of essential services such as health and education in Herat, Nangarhar, and Takhar provinces. The target groups of the project are: Grass root Civil society organizations (CSOs), Local Authorities and civil servants from the Ministry of Education and Public Health among which: a) 108 members from 54 CSOs,15 relevant members of Mostofiat,24 from DoPH,24 from DoEd,9 from PGO and 12 from Provincial council, in total 108 CSOs members and 84 Local Authorities in three provinces have been trained on Budget Process and Budget Advocacy. b) the same 108 members of 54 CSOs, 15 from DoPH and 15 from DoEd, in total 108 CSO members and 30 local authorities are trained on legal literacy right to information and right to information practice, c) the same 108 members of 54 target CSOs have been trained on Citizen score card, d) the same 108 members from 54 CSOs have been trained on Evidence based advocacy, e) the same108 members from 54 CSOs have been trained on Social audit. simultaneously, at national level 22 civil servant from 3 Ministries have been trained on Policy analysis and 22 CSO members from 22 CSOs who are also NAC members are trained on Budget process, budget advocacy, evidence based advocacy and legal literacy in Kabul. This is the second call for proposal under this action in fulfilment to its Sub Granting Scheme that is one of key components of CITIZEN STATE Project which aims to support civil society organizations in monitoring the national budgeting process and using evidence-based advocacy to influence it. Through the Sub Granting Scheme, the project will be financing small scale advocacy campaigns addressing related thematic areas (2.1.5).

4 1.1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE SUB GRANTING SCHEME AND PRIORITY ISSUES The general objective of this call for proposal is : (1) Increased transparency and public accountability of the local/national government authorities in planning and budgeting processes (2) Improved constructive engagement between citizens and local/national government authorities in the planning and budgeting processes (3) Increased collective action of citizens for influencing the planning and budgeting processes at the local/national level The specific objective of this Call for Proposal is: to empower and mobilize grassroot civil society organizations active in monitoring the national budgeting process and using evidence based advocacy to influence it in order to include community demands by capitalizing on opportunities provided in the Provincial budgeting policy and the forthcoming Sub- National Governance Policy. Figure1 Influencing activities in the budget process

5 PRIORITIES The applicant organizations should consider matters from their relevant provincial advocacy plans for Health and Education sectors developed during the first phase of the project but not limited, they can propose other issues related to the concerned sectors other than the plan (existing advocacy plan) as well FINANCIAL ALLOCATION PROVIDED BY THE CONTRACTING AUTHORITY The overall indicative amount made available under this (first) call for proposal must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts but innovative proposals are exceptional and can be kept for the second round. Minimum (10,000 EUR) Maximum (30,000 EUR) Oxfam expects to select between 4-6 most relevant campaigns by CSOs per province per budget cycle in the Action. Number of grants per applicant, The applicant may not submit more than one application per round under this call for proposals The applicant may not be a co-applicant in another application at the same time. CO-funding The project will fund 100% of the project budget related to the advocacy/campaigning through (SGS), the salaries can be one component of the grant for Project Manager/Assistant but not operational costs. 2. RULES FOR THIS CALL FOR PROPOSALS These guidelines set out the rules for the submission, selection and implementation of the operations financed under this Call, 2.1 ELIGIBILYT CRITERIA Eligibility of Applicants The eligible applicants are grassroot CSOs that have been part of the training trajectories under the Citizen State Project in 2017;

6 2.1.2 Administrative/eligibility criteria The organization is operational and functional for at least one (1) year The organization is registered under any law governing the civil society organizations in Afghanistan and active in one of the target province territory The applicant organization should have at least basic knowledge of maintaining financial records. The organizations must have filled out the eligibility form for certification with AICS and follows the certification process; Proposals criteria: Strategic coherence: The extent to which the proposals are in line with the overall objective of enhancing responsiveness, accountability, transparency and efficiency of Local Authorities to deliver services in health and/or education; Evidence based: The extent to which the proposals are based on evidence, gathered through field monitoring, research and/or other arns; Broad-based and inclusive approaches: The extent to which the proposals intend to engage with local communities and Local Authorities, promote dialogue, and are acceptable to local communitybased organizations and communities. Proposals including innovative approaches for joint CSO- Local Authorities campaigning will be given preference; Innovation: The level of creativity and innovative approaches used in the proposal; Sustainability: The likeliness that activities can continue or have continued impact after the funding runs out; Visibility: The extent to which activities and their results are visible for a larger audience than only the direct beneficiaries or the local communities involved; Linking: The level of interconnectedness and linkages of their proposed activities to existing (policy) processes and (community) initiatives Community acceptance: The level of general trust and acceptance of the proposed activities in the local communities; Credibility: The extent to which proposed activities are realistic, both in terms of their implementation and their expected results; Performance: The extent to which the organization has the operational capacity to implement the proposal; Politically neutral: Applicants should not be connected to any kind of political party or interest group,and should support constructive agendas such as peace building, development and human security instead of negative, dividing agendas or extremist ideas.

7 2.1.4 Duration The initial planned duration for the small-scale campaigns/projects may not exceed 10 months ( one budget cycle March December ) The project/campaigns themes The proposed small-scale campaign projects should focus on the two sectors of health and education service delivery in the target provinces i.e,: The proposed actions can be one of the raised demands according to the developed advocacy plan or be clearly linked to an ongoing trajectory. Monitoring the implementation of the 1398 provincial plan and budget, Advocacy/lobby meetings or campaigns at local and national levels on inclusion of local needs and priorities in the provincial plan and budget of the 1399 Accountability and responsiveness mechanism on provision of access to information Advocacy/campaigns on implementation of policies Support the implementation of the access to information law to ensure transparency and accountability in planning and budgetary process Support inclusion and participation of Afghan citizens in the budget process Location Campaigns/advocacy projects are encouraged to be implemented in rural and urban areas of target provinces Takhar: Taloqan,Rustaq and Dusht e Qala,Herat : Herat City,Enjil and Guzara,,Nangarhar: Jalalabad, Sorkh road and Behsood Non Permissible Action Actions concerned only or mainly with individual sponsorships for participation in workshops, seminars, conferences, congresses; One-time off conference: conferences can only be funded if 1) they are duly justified and fall under objectives of the call for proposals and they form part of a wider range of activities to be implemented in the lifetime of the Project. Co-funding of other projects; Financial subventions to other organizations; Purchase of land, building and offices; Projects taking place outside of the targeted regions;

8 2.1.8 Coverage of costs The Sub Grants Scheme will cover 100 % of the total project budget, within the agreed limits in the contract Contract award procedures Where implementation of the project requires awarding of a procurement contract, beneficiary must award the contract to the economically most advantageous offer, i.e. the bid offering the best value for money, respecting the principles of transparency and equal treatment of potential contractors and ensuring that there is no conflict of interest Monitoring and Evaluation Monitoring and evaluation of the approved projects will be implemented by Oxfam Visibility The Applicants must take all necessary steps to publicize the fact that the European Union is funding the action through the CITIZEN STATE Project for Citizen-State Engagement for Transparency and Accountability in Health and Education project implemented by CSOs. As far as possible, the proposals that are funded by EU must incorporate information and communication activities designed to raise the awareness of audiences of the reasons for the project activities and the EU support in the local concerned, as well as the results and the impact of this support. Applicants must comply with the objectives and priorities and guarantee the visibility of the EU and OXFAM financing. (Communication and Visibility plan for EU and Oxfam Annex 3) Eligibility of costs that be included Only eligible costs can be covered by a grant. The budget presented is considered both a cost estimate and a ceiling for eligible costs that will be approved by the contracting authority. 2.2 HOW TO APPLY AND THE PROCEDURES TO FOLLOW Application forms Applications must be submitted in accordance with the instructions on the Application form in the Grant Application Form annexes to these Guidelines (Annex 1,2). Applications prepared and delivered in English language will be preferred but applicants can also deliver their application in Dari and Pashto languages.

9 2.2.2 Where and how to send Applications Applications must be submitted in the complete application form (full application form) and budget by at Deadline for submission of Applications The deadline for the submission of applications is 15/02/2019 as evidenced by the date of dispatch, the postmark or the date of the deposit slip. Any application submitted after the deadline will automatically be rejected Further information about applications Questions may be sent by no later than 10 days before the deadline for the submission of applications to the below address, indicating clearly the reference of the Call for Proposals: address: The Sub Granting Authority has no obligation to provide clarifications to questions received after this date. 2.3 EVALUATION AND SELECTION OF APPLICATIONS Applications will be examined and evaluated by the Project Governance Team compose of consortium members and EU representative an observer to the process. All the shortlisted proposals will be assessed according to the following steps and criteria. If the examination of the application reveals that the proposed project does not meet the eligibility criteria, the application will rejected on this sole basis. STEP 1: OPENING & ADMINISTRATIVE CHECKS The following will be assessed: Compliance with the submission deadline. If the deadline has not been met, the application will automatically be rejected. The Application Form satisfies all the criteria specified in eligibility criteria list. If any of the requested information is missing or is incorrect, the application may be rejected on that sole basis and the application will not be evaluated further.

10 STEP 2: EVALUATION OF THE FULL APPLICATION First, the following will be assessed: The quality of the applications(proposals) and relevancy with respect to the project focus, including the proposed budget and capacity of the applicants, will be evaluated using the intensive evaluation criteria by the granting authority. STEP 3: Final Evaluation The applicants who have received the best assessment and score will be announced as winners by the Contracting authority. The contracting authority gives the final approval of the winning projects based on a ranking list coming because of: The administrative/eligibility assessment of the proposal; The evaluation of the proposed action, and Funding availability within the SGS. STEP 4: Complaint procedures. The applicant will be informed in writing (regular mail and ) if rejected, and the reasons for the rejection. Without prejudice, where an applicant believes he/she has been unfavorably affected by an error or irregularity allegedly committed as part of the selection procedure, or that the procedure was vitiated by any maladministration, he may file a complaint to Oxfam through hotline service at within 5 (five) days from the day when the rejection letter/ has been received. The contracting authority will consider and evaluate the complaints. The complaints coming from the administrative/eligibility and technical assessment will be answered within five working days from the complaint application, the complaining party will receive the clarification on the rejection of their application but, the decision of the application evaluation committee is irreversible. STEP 5: Negotiation and contracting stage PMT prior to signing the contract reserves the right to negotiate with the applicant to: Ensure cost efficiency of the action; Reflect real market costs; Reflect costs in accordance with proposed activities The points of negotiation should in no way change the substantial part of the proposed action, after reaching an agreement the sub grant contract will be signed between the relevant applicant and Oxfam in Afghanistan.

11 2.4 NOTIFICATION OF THE CONTRACTING AUTHORITY S DECISION Content of the decision The applicant will be informed in writing of the Contracting Authority s decision concerning their application and, if rejected, the reasons for the negative decision INDICATIVE TIMETABLE DESCRIPTION DATE TIME Official Public Launch of the Grant Round 1 20 January :30 14:00 Deadline for requesting any clarifications 23 January :30 from the Contracting authority Last date on which clarifications are issued 25 January :30 by the contracting authority Deadline for submission of Application :30 Notification of award 05 March :30 Contract Signature 15 March :30 14:00 3. MONITORING AND REPORTING 3.1 Qualitative Monitoring and Reporting The project management team will use the MIS as a tool to supervise the CSOs assignments financed by the SGS. The MIS will monitor the progress of work, the timely completion of deliverables and money expenditures allocated under each activity. The MIS will be used for each sub - grantees with a separate and specific ID. The awarded projects related information, activity status and monthly progress reports will be available on the MIS System to donor agency and consortium members. Each Sub-grantee will be monitored on monthly basis in the field Field trip reports on the findings from the visit will be provided and uploaded on the related subgrantee s MIS account

12 3.2 Financial Monitoring Reporting on the progress of the project CSOs which implement the project must prepare financial and narrative reports and submit them within deadlines defined in the project contracts. The templates for reporting to be used will be those of Oxfam. All these templates will be provided to the selected applicants as part of the Partnership Agreements The financial reports along with all the original financial supporting documents will be submitted to Oxfam every quarter. Once checked and verified by the finance team and, at the end each of the financial supporting document (invoice) stamped Paid by Oxfam, the documents will be returned to the partner. The original copies stay with the partner and Oxfam keeps the copies. 3.3 Instalment Payments The reporting frequency of the project will depend on the amount of funding and its features. On an average, the reporting frequency will be every three months and Exceptions, especially in the smallerproposed actions, will be reflected in the signed agreements. On an average, the frequency of the instalments will be as below: Instalment Earliest Payment date Conditions for Payment 50 % (instalment I) after signing the contract Payment will be made within 5 days after the contract is signed. 40% (Instalment II) after receipt of the mid-term report Instalment III/final payment of 10% Payment will be made after sending and acceptance by Oxfam of the mid-term financial and narrative report, and written request for funds. Payment will be made after sending and acceptance by Oxfam of the final financial and narrative report within 10 days after the receipt. A further pre-financing payment request is required to be submitted by each of the partner according to the templates in Annexes. Note: Oxfam shall withhold, vary the date and/or amount of any instalment(s) otherwise due to the Partner for any of the following reasons: Where it reasonably considers it necessary to avoid a possible violation of Donor Conditions Pending submission of satisfactory financial/narrative reports by the Partner or satisfactory response by the Partner on adverse findings of Oxfam following an inspection/review/audit