Call for Concept Note Civic Engagement Project

Organization : United Nation Development Program (UNDP)

Date Post : 02 October 2022

Funding Opportunity for Civil Society Organizations in Cambodia

Call for Concept Note

Civic Engagement Project

Funded by United Nation Development Program (UNDP)

1. Rationale

The United Nation Development Program (UNDP) launched “Civic Engagement” project that aims at Building Capacities for Civic Engagement, Peacebuilding, and Inclusive Dialogue: Towards Inclusive and Participatory Governance. The overall objectives of the project are to promote democratic governance initiatives and a peaceful, inclusive, and equitable society through expanding opportunities for inclusive civic engagement using dialogue in Cambodia. In line with the overall objective, the project proposes to achieve three related outputs: 

Output 1 – Capacity development: CSOs and governmental authorities (both national and sub-national) will be able to engage each other better in responding to citizens’ interests and in recognizing different voices of men and women, with particular attention to marginalized groups.

Output 2 – Supporting Dialogue: Existing infrastructure for civic engagement (mechanisms, processes, and policies) will be more constructive, inclusive, and open to diverse opinions.  

Output 3 – Enhancing Government-CSO relations: Partnership among citizens, CSOs and government institutions (both national and sub-national) will be strengthened through identifying more benefits of civic engagement.

Under Output 1 of the project, there is an activity “develop capacity of CSO” which focuses on the support of civil society’s resilience at the ecosystem level through the provision of grants to CSO.

Cooperation Committee for Cambodia (CCC), the largest and longest membership organization in Cambodia, as the Responsible Party of UNDP will implement this grant provision section of the project. It is therefore, CCC through the Civil Society Fund (CSF) is very pleased to invite all local registered CSOs to submit their concept notes for this grant funding opportunity.

2. Project Areas/Thematic Focus

A research study called “Civil Society Ecosystem Mapping Analysis” was conducted by UNDP in four provinces - Kampong Cham, Kampot, Ratanakiri and Siem Reap in order to seek for comprehensive understanding on the challenges faced with CSOs in the context of Civic Engagement, Peacebuilding, and Inclusive Dialogue. The analysis found three dimensions that threatens CSO’s resilience and sustainability - the financial viability, the advocacy, and the sectoral infrastructure.

The sub-dimensions of Financial Viability:

• Diversification of Funding Sources- Availability of CSOs’ multiple sources of funding including but not limited to local support in the form of domestic source of funding and other resources for CSOs; and foreign support in the form of foreign funding sources.
• Fund raising - CSO’s capacity to raise funds.
• Earned income - CSO’s revenue generated from the sale of products and services
• Financial management system - CSOs capacity (process, procedures, and tools) to manage financial resources and operations

The sub-dimensions of Sectoral Infrastructure:

• Intermediary support organization and CSO resource centers - the existence of organizations for supporting CSOs on training and other support services.
• CSO networks and coalitions - to promote and facilitate cooperation among CSOs in the province as such to have proper venue for CSOs to organize meeting, training, workshop and others.
• Training and - Availability of training opportunities to CSOs
• Inter-sectoral partnerships - level of collaboration between CSO and the government and the private sector.

The objectives of the grant projects are to get financial viability and sectoral infrastructure not just for NGO applicant but NGO sector as a whole in the province, improved. Thus, concept notes that could effectively propose ways to strengthen this financial viability and or sectoral infrastructure dimensions for NGO sector in each of the four stated province, will be shortlisted and be invited to submit detail proposal which includes technical and financial proposal for this grant.

3. Budget of Grant Project

CSF is looking to award 8 grant projects. This includes 4 grant projects that work on enhancing financial viability for CSOs and, the other 4 grant projects that work on improving CSO’s sectoral infrastructure in each of the four provinces.

The maximum budget of each grant project is around USD 22,000 (twenty-two thousand United State Dollar). Thus, the total available grant budget for all the 8 projects is USD176,000. This budget may vary, and will be re-confirmed during the information session. 

The eligible cost for personnel and overhead is allowable at 25% of the total cost of the project activities.

4. Project Sites and Implementation Period

The objectives of these projects are to improve CSO’s financial viability and CSO’s sectoral infrastructure in the four provinces. It is therefore, these project will be implemented in these four provinces i.e. Kompong Cham, Kompot, Ratanakiri and Siem Reap.

The successful proposals will be notified during last week of December 2022. The successful applicants will implement their respective project till September 30^th, 2023.     

5. Who can apply

• All registered local NGOs and registered provincial NGO networks are eligible to apply for this grant.
• Provincial NGO network that is a voluntary group can also apply for this grant. In this case, the network will need to selectively assign an NGO member to represent the network and apply for this grant.
• It is not mandatory that applicant NGOs or provincial NGO network must be from the project-site province, they can be from any provinces or cities in Cambodia, but the awarded project must be implemented in the assigned province that the applicant had applied for.  
• An applicant NGO or provincial NGO network can apply for only 1-2 grant projects in one designated province.

6. How to Apply

Interested applicants are invited to submit a concept notes in Words and PDF files as well as a scan copy of registration of the organization, no later than October 17^th, 2022 at 23:59, to Mr. Loem Dina, the Civil Society Fund Specialist (CSFS) via dina.loem@ccc-cambodia.org. The concept notes form is available for download. CSF will only accept the concept notes in that provided template and with all requested information filled up in accordance with the stated instruction in each section of the form. The concept notes can be filled up in either Khmer or English language. 

The virtual information session will be organized on  11^th October, 2022. Please register via:https://www.ccc-cambodia.org/en/resources/event-calendar/2022-10-11/call-for-concept-note-civic-engagement-project-information-session for this information session. This registration link will be closed on 1^st October, 2022 at 17:00 hours and the zoom link to attend this information session will be emailed to those who had registered on  2^nd October 2022.

7. Submission Schedule

1- Click download Call for Concept Notes_UNDP

2- Click download Concept Note Form EN & KH

3. Slide Presentation Information Session

4. Slide for validation meetings

5. NGO Network Presentation

6. Click to download Full Proposal Template

7. Click to download Detail Budget Template