UN Women plans to award small grants to eligible Civil Society Organizations (CSO) in the range of USD 2,500 to USD 30,000. Small grants are intended exclusively to finance a limited range of eligible activities to support the development or strengthening of a CSO’s institutional capacity. UN Women is targeting CSOs [To strengthen institutional capacities of women led organizations and/or organizations advancing the rights of the most vulnerable groups /communities] The overall objective of the Small Grants is supporting the strengthening of CSO’s, in particular grassroots and youth organizations with institutional capacity. The applicant should propose activities that will enable the organization to operate in a sustainable manner and where the applicant has the capacity to reach the target audience. The small grants may be used to strengthen the organization’s capacity on the following:
- results-based management and financial management.
- development of organizational systems, tools, and processes;
- capacity building of personnel in technical and managerial skills
- operational capacities through the purchase of equipment
The purpose of small grants is not to finance the delivery of a programmatic activity. UN Women invites eligible applicants to submit small grants applications for eligible activities. UN Women will consider awarding several small grants in this case. This advertisement forms the basis for applying for small grants. It must neither be construed as a small grant agreement nor as a confirmation of a small grant awarded by UN Women to any entity. Consequently, UN Women is not liable for any financial obligations, or otherwise, incurred by any entity in responding to this advertisement. UN Women will not approve such costs as part of any small grant budget, and an awardee must not use the small grant to cover such costs.
1. Eligible CSOs The applicant may apply if it:
- is a registered CSO in operation for at least three years;
- is not on the Consolidated UN Security Council Sanctions List;
- is not being investigated for fraud, corruption, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or other wrongdoing;
- has not had funding received from UN Women entirely or partly written off by UN Women;
- is not currently engaged as an Implementing Partner (IP) or Responsible Party (RP) for UN Women;
- has not been engaged as an IP/RP for UN Women at any time after 21 November 2019;
- is not a government entity;
- is not a UN organization;
- is not an established CSO with the capacity to be engaged as an IP/RP;
- has sufficient capacity to collaborate with various stakeholders;
- has sufficient financial stewardship, including having adequate financial policies and procedures in place to manage the small grant; and,
- past performance has been deemed satisfactory by UN Women (if it has received small grants previously or been engaged as an IP/RP before 21 November 2019).
2. Eligible activities The applicant may apply for a small grant to cover the following activities:
- introducing and improving organizational systems, tools, and processes;
- training of workforce in technical and managerial skills; and,
- supporting with equipment such as copiers, scanners, printers, laptops and computers as long as the cost of such equipment is limited to 30% of the proposed small grant budget or USD5,000, whichever is lower.
3. Limitations
UN Women’s small grants are limited to a maximum of USD 30,000 per CSO per 12-month period and a maximum USD 60,000 for the lifetime of the CSO. The calculation of the maximum grant amount includes all small grants awarded to the CSO from all UN Women Offices.
4. Application
An application must contain all relevant information showing that the applicant and the proposed activities are eligible. All applications must be in English. Hand-written applications will not be accepted.
Please use the attached application form when submitting your application.
Please submit a registration certificate evidencing that the applicant is a registered CSO that has been in operation for three years.
UN Women will reject any application that doesn’t contain enough information to show that the application or the activities are eligible.
The application must be received by UN-Women via e-mail at the address bco.procurement@unwomen.org specified not later than [5.00pm] on [7 November]. UN Women will not consider applications sent by any other means or to different addresses. Applications sent by any other means [e.g., by fax or by regular mail] or to different addresses are not considered.
5. Review Criteria
The applicant must:
- propose eligible activities that develop or strengthen the institutional capacity of the applicant and are consistent with the relevant strategic plan;
- not propose to use the small grant to provide an activity/output on behalf of UN Women, civil construction work, engineering work, purchases of vehicles or other tangible or intangible property, except for copiers, scanners, printers, laptops, and computers;
- not propose to use more than 30% of the small grant or USD5000, whichever is lower, to purchase copiers, scanners, printers, laptops, and computers;
- propose a timeline that is no longer than a year and eligible activities that are feasible to accomplish within a year, including political, security, logistical considerations;
- not propose to cover its indirect costs/support costs with the small grant;
- not make a direct profit from the small grant;
- not propose to cover costs incurred or committed prior to a signed Small Grant Agreement;
- propose eligible activities sustainably supporting the applicant
- propose eligible activities where the applicant has the capacity to reach the target audience; and,
- propose a budget that is cost-effective given the eligible activities, the number of targeted beneficiaries, and the proposed location.
6. Award
UN Women will evaluate applications that meet all the criteria. UN Women will award the small grants to the applicants that best contributes to the goals reflected as strategic priorities in UN Women’s strategic plan. Successful applicants are informed in writing of UN Women’s decision to award the small grant. The award is conditional on the applicant agreeing to the terms and conditions set forth in UN Women’s Small Grant Agreement and the award is automatically rescinded if the applicant doesn’t agree to these terms and conditions.
