SCHEDULE A I. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: REWARD is a four-and-one-half-year program funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Creative Associates International (Creative). REWARD was designed to support USAID West Africa s Regional Development Cooperation Strategy (RDCS) Development Objective 1 (DO1): Strengthening systems of non-violent conflict management in the West African region. To help achieve this objective, REWARD seeks to achieve two sub-purposes: 1) working with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to enhance conflict early warning and response systems to reduce the risk of violence throughoutecowas s 15 member states; and, 2) support national and local stakeholders in targeted countries in the region to prevent and mitigate electoral violence around upcoming electoral processes. As part of the second sub-purpose under REWARD, the project is seeking to support Ghanaian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to conduct electoral violence prevention and mitigation activities in the run-up to Ghana s 2016 national elections. Program Objectives: To sensitize community members, politicians, and their supporters, including women and youth, in hotspot areas against political violence around the elections; To promote women and youth as positive participants, leaders, and peacemakers in electoral processes; To raise public awareness around and promote the civic understanding of the political processes surrounding the elections; and To promote peaceful interactions and alternatives to violence within the political processes surrounding the upcoming Ghanaian elections. II. SOLICITING ACTIVITIES This RFA is seeking applicants to propose activities to prevent, manage, and/or mitigate electoral violence in Ghana leading up to, during, and after the presidential and parliamentary elections scheduled for November 7, 2016, and a potential second-round run-off, if necessary. Proposed activities should seek to focus specifically in potential hotspot regions including Volta, Ashanti, Greater Accra, Upper East, Eastern, and Northern Ghana and should seek to complement existing state-led prevention and mitigation efforts conducted through the National Peace Commission, Electoral Commission s Civic Education Department, National Commission for Civic Education, and National Media Commission. The election cycle is divided into three phases Pre-election, Election Day, and Post-election phases. Activities can target one or all of these phases, as further detailed below in this section. Activities may include workshops, information campaigns, education, counseling and support services, and communication campaigns focused on one or more of the following areas: 1 P a g e
A. Multi-Media Campaigns on Peaceful Elections: This activity could take place in all three election phases targeting the general public, with target locations varying by phase (see below): Pre-election: Multi-media messaging campaigns on peaceful elections, in hot spot regions. Election Day: Peace messaging on voting in peace, at national level. Post-election: Multi-media messaging campaigns focusing on peaceful reactions to the outcomes of the elections, and employing peaceful means of electoral dispute resolution in hot spot regions. B. Youth Empowerment through Peace Messaging: Activities could focus on young people from the communities at risk by engaging them through workshops in mediation and peacebuilding. Such activities could include: Prioritizing strategies and programming to demobilizing the youth militia and to engage them in peacebuilding activities; Conducting outreach and peacebuilding activities that focus on youth, training them directly and having them conduct activities; Training and deploying youth to their home communities to serve as grassroots dispute mediators; and Providing mediation and peacebuilding skills through training to youth in sensitization to the damage done by electoral violence and the employment of political dialogue over conflict in electoral competition. Activities could take place in Pre-election and Post-election phases, targeting youths in hot spot regions. For example, Pre-election: Expansion of youth participation programs for youth at risk of Militia Recruitment in hot spot regions. Post-election: Expansion of programs to the community level to serve as grassroots dispute mediators for youth at risk for post-election rioting in hot spot regions. C. Empowering Women s Political Participation: This activity could provide awareness-raising messaging to respect women s political participation. Such activities could include: supporting women to actively participate in political transitions and governance process; and/or, advocating for women s legal rights at the national level that enable women to participate fully in the political life of their societies. D. Engaging Women in Electoral Violence Prevention: Activities can take place particularly in the pre-election and post-election phases to support women leaders including Queen Mothers and Mothers to take active roles in preventing electoral violence. These activities can include: building the capacity of women leaders to engage youth at-risk around peaceful election initiatives and/or mediating community disputes around elections. 2 P a g e
E. Preventing Electoral Violence Against Women: Activities can take place during all stages of the electoral cycle and may include: development of messaging campaigns raising awareness around intimidation and disparagement of female candidates; and/or, monitoring and reporting on incidents of electoral violence against women in the run-up to Election Day, on Election Day, and in the immediate post-election phase for follow-up by the appropriate electoral security stakeholders. F. Monitoring and Mapping National Incidents: Monitoring activities could include the elections in general, incidents of electoral violence, and media. Mapping national incidents should have a robust and focused incident monitoring methodology that will include a mapping platform for a visualization of the conflict dynamics. This effort will support the establishment of an Election Situation Room as a clearinghouse for real-time reporting on election activities to feed its observations into the Early Warning Systems. This activity could take place nationally in all three phases of the electoral cycle to monitor and map Pre-election, Election Day, and Post-election incidents. G. Monitoring of Social Media for Threats and Incidents: This activity could monitor social media for threats and incidents of violence. The aim is to quickly vet, identify, and locate breaking events, incidents and emerging threats of electoral violence in the Pre-election, Election Day, and Post-election phases to feed into Early Warning Systemsand to validateand document incidents of electoral violence so that perpetrators can be identified. This activity could take place nationally in all three phases of the electoral cycle. H. Capacity Building Trainings for Journalists: Capacity building for journalists could provide trainings on technical skills in editorial guidelines for covering stories about electoral violence. Such activities could also improve best practices for covering of electoral conflict and violence and reporting considerations around elections, as well as focusing on participation of women candidates.this activity could take place at the national level in the Pre-election phase. I. Coordination of Rapid Release of Observation Findings: This activity could establish mechanisms to help deploy the rapid release of domestic and international observer findings and official parallel vote tabulation reports. This activity could take place at the national level in the Post-election phase during the dissemination of elections results to help prevent misinformation that could lead to violence. J. Service and Counseling Provision for Victims of Electoral Violence and their Families: This activity could provide victim s services, counseling, and humanitarian support for electoral violence victims and their families. This activity could take place at the national level in the Post-election phase. 3 P a g e
III. AWARD INFORMATION Subject to the availability of funds, Creative expects to award up to 25 grants, ranging from a minimum value of $5,000 USD to $100,000 USD. The total amount available is $710,000 USD. The expected duration of Creative s support or the period of performance is July 25, 2016 January 31, 2017. REWARD/Creative reserves the right to fund any or none of the application submitted. Eligibility Information a. Applicant must be officially registered as a legal entity and working in compliance with all applicable local laws and statutes. (If an applicant is not legally registered, the applicant can show proof of effort to secure registration, exemption from registration, or show cause why such registration is not necessary); b. Contribute to at least one of the project s objectives and activities; c. Contain expected outcomes and results consistent with and linked to the project s objectives; d. Applicant has not been debarred from receiving USG contracts and listed the USG Excluded Parties List System (https://www.epls.gov) and the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List. Types of Grantees Eligible The following types of applicants are eligible to receive an award under this RFA: Non-US Non-government Organizations (Non-US NGOs) o Community Based Organization (CBOs) o Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) IV. APPLICATION AND SUBMISSION INFORMATION Any questions concerning this RFA should be submitted in writing not later than three (3) days prior to the closing date shown above to Mr. Herbie Muzita, Grants Manager, at Grants@crea-reward.com. Applicants should retain for their records one copy of all enclosures which accompany their application. The application must be received by Creative no later than midnight on the closing date indicated at the top of this cover letter (June 30, 2016) at the email address designated below for receipt of applications. Pre-award costs are not allowable and will not be reimbursed. An application and modifications thereof shall be submitted in electronic format to Mr. Herbie Muzita, Grants Manager, at Grants@crea-reward.com: Applications must be submitted in electronic form only. The complete application packet must be submitted in English in the required format with the required attachments. Application: a. DUNS number b. Organizational background c. Program description (should not exceed 4 pages) 4 P a g e
d. Beneficiaries, outcomes and expected impact e. Communication Plan f. Monitoring and Evaluation g. Budget h. Work-plan i. Statement of liability (should be part of the application form) j. Other material Financial and Management Capability Questionnaire Required Certification as per ADS 303.3.8 Please send the Cover Letter and Application as a single PDF file, including any supporting document(s). Restrictions Grant Funds provided under the terms of this RFA shall not be used to finance any of the following commodities as per ADS 312 Eligibility of Commodities: Ineligible Commodities: Military equipment, surveillance equipment, commodities or equipment for the support of police or other law enforcement activities, abortion equipment and services, luxury goods, gambling equipment, weather modification equipment. Restricted commodities include: Agricultural commodities, motor vehicles, pharmaceuticals, contraceptives and condoms, pesticides, used equipment, fertilizer. Others: Purchases of goods or services restricted or prohibited under the prevailing USAID source and nationality and other regulations found under ADS 310 or from countries and suppliers as may be identified by USAID s consolidated list of debarred, suspended or ineligible subcontractors at http://www.epls.gov/. Any purchases or activities deemed unnecessary to accomplish grant, including any grantee headquarters expenses that are not directly linked to the implementation of the proposed project. Previous obligations and/or bad debts. Fines and /or penalties. Other costs unallowable under USAID and/or federal regulations such as referenced 2 CFR 200 Subpart E Cost Principles and FAR 31.2 Cost Principles for Commercial Organizations. Late Application Late applications are marked as late and are ineligible for review or award; however, Creative reserves the right to accept and include late applications in the review and award process when it is considered within the best interest of REWARD to do so and if 5 P a g e
applications that were received on time have not been opened and reviewed. Applications that are submitted late or incomplete run the risk of not being considered for review. V. APPLICATION REVIEW INFORMATION REWARD s Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) will evaluate applications based on the proposed program description, cost required to support the project to achieve the expected results, and below mentioned evaluation criteria. REWARD considers all information received from applicants as proprietary. The information will be held in strict confidence in order to protect the integrity and privacy rights of the grant applicant. Within five (5) working days of the deadline for submitting applications, a TEC will convene. Throughout the evaluation process, REWARD shall take steps to ensure that members of the TEC do not have any conflicts of interest or the appearance of such with regard to the organizations whose applicants are under review. An individual shall be considered to have the appearance of a conflict of interest if that person, or that person s spouse, partner, child, close friend or relative works for or is negotiating to work for, or has a financial interest (including being an unpaid member of a Board of Directors) in any organization that submitted an application currently under the panel s review. Members of the TEC shall neither solicit nor accept gratuities, favors, or anything of monetary value from parties to the awards. Verification of the application submission requirements will be conducted by the Grants Manager. If an application is deemed suitable, an award will be made within 30 working days of the TEC meeting provided that the awardee furnishes REWARD with all the required documentation as itemized in this RFA and the application receives approval from USAID. The application will be evaluated according to the evaluation criteria set forth below. To the extent necessary (if an award is not made based on initial applications), negotiations may be conducted with each applicant whose application, after discussion and negotiation, has a reasonable chance of being selected for award. Evaluation Criteria a. Technical approach and strategic fit 50 points Clearly defined problem statement Relevant and feasible goals and program accomplishments Innovative technical approach Clearly identified obstacles and solutions Relevance to program goals Sustainability of project results Anticipated impact on the beneficiaries b. Past Performance / Organizational Capacity 30 points Past performance in similar projects Relevant staff skills to the proposed project Experience in geographical region 6 P a g e
Written accounting and procurement procedures Capacity to adhere to USAID financial guidelines c. Gender and Youth Considerations 15 points Organizational mandate and mechanism to integrate gender and youth equality in the program Gender and youth analysis & planning integrated into program process d. Cost Effectiveness 5 points Are costs reasonable, allowable, and allocable Is the proposal cost effective In the review and implementation of grants, REWARD reserves the right to investigate an application or a grant due to any real or perceived conflict of interest. In the event that REWARD determines that conflict of interest exists, REWARD may disqualify an application or terminate a grant. VII. AWARD AND ADMINISTRATION INFORMATION The recommendation or selection of an application in accordance with established procedures does not guarantee an award. All applicants must demonstrate that they possess, or have the ability to obtain, the necessary management competence to practice mutually agreed upon methods of accountability for funds and other assets provided. A successful applicant can expect to receive an Award Letter, signed by the Chief of Party, Samuel Konkofa Koroma. The award letter will be addressed to the organizations point of contact as stated in the application. Applicants that were not successful can expect a letter explaining the reason for their unsuccessful application. Following the Award Letter, final negotiations will take place before the signing of a grant agreement. Reporting Procedures A description of reporting requirements will be included in the Grant Agreement. The types of reporting required, along with the schedule of reporting, will depend on the grant type and project duration. Reporting forms will be provided to grant recipients. Types of reporting will include the following: Program report to be submitted during project implementation according to a schedule described in the grant agreement. This report will include a description of progress made during the period, problems in project implementation; actions taken to overcome them; and activities planned for the next period. Final program report will describe how the project objectives and goals were reached, results of the project, and problems and solutions during implementation. 7 P a g e
This information should be presented in a manner suitable for presentation to the public. Financial reports will be submitted to REWARDaccording to a schedule described in the grant agreements. Types of financial reports, as well as the schedule of reporting, will depend on the type of grant, length of project, and amount of grant funding. VI. ANNEX: MANDATORY STANDARD PROVISIONS Mandatory Standard Provisions for Non-U.S., Nongovernmental Organizations Required as Applicable Standard Provisions for Non-U.S., Nongovernmental Organizations http://www.usaid.gov/policy/ads/300/303mab.pdf REWARD/Creative reserves the right to fund any or none of the applications received 8 P a g e