SMALL GRANTS CALL FOR INNOVATIVE ACTIVITIES IN LOCAL GOVERNANCE
Our last small grants call ended on August 15, 2012. Nine (9) successful Civil Society Organizations have now been assigned funds to complete interventions aimed at increasing citizens' participation in local government in the Western Region.
Follow this
link to see the interventions of our latest grantees.
You may also read the content of our last grants call below, to get details about of our areas of interest and eligibility criteria under that call.
The Local Governance and Decentralization Program embarks on the mandate of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to increase assistance for responsible institutions, with a focus on supporting good governance. The Program is focusing on all the 17 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in the Western Region of Ghana and taking a holistic approach to good governance, whereby both the process and the tangible outcomes are critical.
The Program is working on advancing USAID/Ghana’s Strategic Objective 5, “Strengthened Democratic and Decentralized Governance through Civic Involvement” with its main focus in three areas:
• Public participation in local governance expanded
• Internally generated funds of targeted local districts increased
• Comprehensive development planning for local districts achieved
Management Systems International (MSI), managers of the Program, encourages applications which propose interventions focused in these areas that are in alignment with the goals and programs of USAID/Ghana and LOGODEP. These interventions aim at “Strengthening Democratic and Decentralized Governance through Civil Involvement” by widening the decision-making base to ensure greater participation in the development process at community, sub-district and district levels.
Applications must be submitted to MSI via email attachment (in Microsoft Word and/or Excel documents) to: logodep@msi-ghana.com. MSI currently anticipates that an award will be issued to winning applications within two months from the submission of the Step 1 of the application (presentation of Concept Paper). The funding available for all awards made under this APS is approximately $350,000. Award amounts may range from approximately $5,000 to $100,000, for periods up to ten (10) months.
This announcement is seeking applicants to propose innovative and effective interventions in the areas of:
- Transparency and accountability of local government structures
- Public participation in local governance
- Participation of women in local governance and supporting gender-related issues
- Applications that group together a coalition of organizations, or strengthen existing groups will also be considered
- Other cross-cutting issues that relate to local governance and strengthening citizen participation
Applicants may choose among a range of initiatives or scale up small interventions that have demonstrable attitudinal/behavioural change in the call areas outlined above. The proposed initiatives are expected to have further scale-up potentials; they should be pilot activities that, if successful, could be expanded within the targeted districts within the Western Region and to other regions in future.
Grant Projects should enable organizations to undertake practical, innovative and timely activities. For example, activities could include:
- Review of the 2% of the Common Fund intended for disability work such as accountability in terms of the free health care and schooling provisions according to the Disability Act 2005
- Improving citizens’ understanding of District Assembly budget processes and monitoring of expenditure
- Developing citizens’ understanding of the role of local government institutions and how to access support
- Strengthening active civic participation in health activities at community level
- Increasing and supporting the active participation of women in local governance
- Communication on the rights and responsibilities of citizens as participants in local development; and
- Strengthening the capacity of unit committees in monitoring public projects in their districts.
An applicant must be a qualified, legally registered Ghanaian non-governmental organization (NGO), civil society organization (CSO), community-based organization (CBO) or community group whose main objectives are to promote and empower broad-based citizen participation in local governance. Grant funds awarded under this APS cannot be used towards any profit by the grantees. Applicants must be responsible, law abiding organizations with a record of business integrity, an established charter, organization and structure. Applicants receiving grants will be required to provide price-sharing in the form of cash or in-kind contributions.
The application process is in two stages. The process in fully explained in the
Annual Program Statement (APS)
.
Step 1 : Concept Paper Stage.
Step 2 :Full Application stage (Only for pre-qualified applicants from stage 1)
SMALL GRANTS