CALL FOR PROPOSALS ACCESS TO AND USE OF ICT FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS Guidelines for grant applicants Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development NOTICE This is an Open Call for Proposals. Only Full Applications should be submitted for assessment. Applicants must use the Full Application Format and its Annexes. Only applications for interventions to be implemented starting year 2012 or 2013 will be considered. Multi-year applications are allowed. This Call for Proposals will be open until 18 October 2012. 1 Background 1.1 Sida and ICT4D Sida s work on Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) is guided by the Swedish Government s Strategy for Capacity Development and Collaboration for the period 2011-2013 1, hereafter referred to as the Strategy. The overall objective for this strategy is that both Swedish and international actors, including in developing countries, have the capacity and skills to contribute to the overall objective of international development cooperation 2 and of reform cooperation in Eastern Europe. In accordance with the Strategy, Sida aims to support development of good skills and high capacity among various actors to facilitate the effective use of, and access to, Information and Communication Technology for Development. 1.2 ICT and the Gender divide Prevailing inequalities in the access to and use of ICT indicates that these technologies are not gender neutral social economic and political context prevent 1 Government decision UF2010/46851/USTYR 2 Swedish development policy aims at enabling poor people to improve their lives
women and girls to access and use ICT. 3 As stated by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan: The so-called digital divide is actually several gaps in one. [ ] There is a gender divide, with women and girls enjoying less access to information technology than men and boys. Sida acts for equal access to technology and equal opportunities for men, women, boys and girls to use ICT in an open society. Engendering ICTs is not merely about greater use of ICTs by women and girls; it is about transforming the ICT system. Sida is looking to support both 1)direct interventions towards groups and/or individuals and 2) structural approaches that aim to change the ICT system to promote equal access and use for women, men, girls and boys. Examples of relevant activities include, but are not limited to: - integrating gender perspectives into national ICT policies; - ensuring that ICT projects and programmes are designed, implemented and evaluated with a clear gender perspective; - collecting information with sex-disaggregated statistics on access to and use of ICT; - raising awareness among gender advocates about the importance of national ICT plans for gender equality; - promoting gender-responsive e-governance; - effective use by women and girls of ICTs and the need for relevant content; - promoting women s economic participation in the information economy; - promoting democratic media; and - Combatting the use of the Internet and other ICTs to perpetuate violence against women and girls. - ICT and women s rights - Working with men and boys attitudes towards gender equality This could be done, for example, by providing training and capacity development in the use of ICTs, by using ICTs to strengthen women entrepreneurs, by shaping and advocating for policy changes to ensure a more equal access to ICTs, by targeting inequalities which would affect access/use of ICT, by providing infrastructure such as mobile phones, internet connection or computers in combination with sustainability measures, and/or by designing applications that would be of specific use for women or girls or their work. 1.3 Objective of the Call for Proposals The specific objective of this Call for Proposals is to increase socio-economic and political equality between women and men by ensuring equal access to technology and equal opportunities for men, women, boys and girls to use ICT in an open society. 3 Empowering Women Through ICT. Spider ICT4D Series No. 4, 2012
2 Rules for the Call for Proposals Only Full Project Applications will be evaluated/assessed. Applicants must use the Full Application Form and its annexes. Only applications for projects to be implemented starting year 2012 or 2013 and ending no later than 31 December 2014 will be considered. This Call for Proposals will be open until October 18, 2012. 2.1 Eligibility Criteria 2.1.1 Eligibility of Applicants In order to be eligible for a grant, applicants must: - be legal persons or an entity without legal personality 4 ; - be non-profit organisations; - Private Entity 5 The applicant can be one of the following types of entities; i. civil society organisation, including non-governmental organisation, and/or networks thereof at community, national, regional and global level, ii. inter-governmental organisation, iii. community-based organisation, iv. public sector agency, v. private sector agency, or vi. foundation. The applicant may belong to e.g. one of the following categories; i. media organisations and institution, ii. service provider, iii. advocacy group, iv. gender equality activist and women s rights activist, v. youth organisation, vi. researcher, academic institution and think tank, 4 Grant applications may be eligible if submitted by entities which do not have legal personality under the applicable national law, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and assume financial liability. 5 Support to private entity is subjected to Swedish legislations on private sector state aid (förordningen om statligt stöd till näringslivet, SFS 1988:764) and European State Aid legislation (EC no 1988/2006), according to which private entities registered in Europe are entitled to recive a total amount of de minimis state aid which does not exceed 200 000 EUR over an period of three fisical years. More over a precondition for the support is also that the private company is also use the same amount (or more) in money or in kind for the proposed project.
vii. viii. ix. trade and labour union, faith-based group, or indigenous and minority group. This list is not exhaustive and the categories are not in order of priority. The inclusion of sub-granting whereby an applicant provides financial support in the form of grants to third parties, is allowed under this Call for Proposals. Sida specially welcomes applications submitted through collaboration between actors with different set of skills and experiences, e.g. Public Private Partnerships (PPPs), joint projects/programmes by the public sector and civil society or cooperation between local, national and/or international actors. 2.1.2 Location The support must be directed to interventions and actors with restriction to activities for development in countries eligible for official development assistance (ODA recipient countries) according to the OECD/DAC-classification. 6 Interventions aimed at global and regional levels are allowed under this Call for Proposals provided that they target ODA recipient countries. Interventions must be designed in a way that promotes sustainability and the active participation of local societies, and their opportunities to maintain ICT solutions in the long term. 2.1.3 Eligible areas of intervention Sida welcomes applications with innovative approach and catalytic interventions. The proposed intervention must have objectives that enable monitoring and results reporting. The objectives should have corresponding verifiable indicators with targets and baselines, to the extent possible. The intervention should have the potential to reach its objectives. Sida supports interventions based on a rights perspective and the perspective of the people living in poverty. As such, Sida will not be able to support any actor, intervention or activity that can be associated with any form of discrimination of human rights. Further, interventions under this Call for Proposals must have the aim to improve the opportunities for people living in poverty to change their lives and move out of poverty. 6 http://www.oecd.org/dac/aidstatistics/48858205.pdf
2.1.4 Eligible costs Support can be given to interventions in the form of core support, programme support or project support. It can be used for capacity development, such as increased capacity for management and administration. For the purposes of this Call for Proposals, core support shall be understood as support to an organisation s entire strategic action plan. A project should be understood as an individual development intervention designed to achieve specific objectives within specified resources and implementation schedules, often within the framework of a broader programme. A programme should be understood as a time bound intervention involving multiple activities that may cut across sectors, themes and/or geographic areas. For more detailed presentation of eligible cost especially in relation to office costs, travels, conferences, equipment and supplies, see the Application Format, Annex 3a Budget. 3 Financial Allocation provided by Sida The indicative financial envelope foreseen for this call for proposals is MSEK 30-50 for activities 2012-2014. Sida reserves the right not to award all available funds and to reallocate them to other objectives. Equally, this amount could be increased should more funds become available. Sida will support around 5 applications. 4 How to apply and procedures to follow 4.1 Application form If you consider your organisation and intervention to be eligible for support under this Call for Proposals, following documents will guide you: - Full Application Format including Annex 1-4. The documents can be downloaded from this link: http://www.sida.se/ict4women In addition also provide: - An externally audited annual report and corresponding audit memorandum/management letter.
These completed documents including annexes and mentioned audit documents will constitute the application. The application must be written in English or Swedish. No hand-written applications will be accepted. No additional annexes should be submitted. 4.2 Where and how to send the application The application must be submitted though the Orbilon system, digital system for applications. Instruction for submission will be found at http://www.sida.se/ict4women Applications can not be submitted before the 17 th of September 2012. 4.3 Deadline for submission of application Deadline for submitting applications is 18 th of October 2012. The submission of the deadline must be respected. If the deadline has not been respected the application will be rejected. 5 Assessment and selection of applications Applications will be examined and assessed by Sida. If the examination of the applications reveals that the eligibility criteria are not met as stated under section 2.1, these applications may be rejected. Applications will be assessed according to the following steps: Step 1 The Executive Summary will be assessed with regard to relevance and design of intervention according to the following criteria: a. Relevance of the intervention - Relevance of the proposal to the particular needs and constraints of the target country(ies) or region(s), and of target groups and final beneficiaries. - Relevance of the proposal to the objective and priorities of the Call for Proposal.
b. Design of the intervention - Coherence of the overall design of the intervention. In particular, does it reflect the problem identification and analysis? - Feasibility and consistence of proposed intervention in relation to the objectives and expected results? Although these criteria are the principal basis for assessing proposals, strategic considerations will also be made regarding the nature of support (catalytic/innovative), whether or not the proposed support adds to a balance in geographic and thematic focus, as well as a balance in the spread of type of actors, so as to reflect the intentions of the support under the Strategy. Sida will also assess the complementarity of the proposal to Sida s ongoing support within the area of ICT4D. Sida s consolidated assessment will be based on the criteria above and presented considerations which will form the basis of selection of applications to be evaluated in step 2. Step 2 In this step Sida will assess the selected applicants full applications. In this phase Sida may request additional information for the assessment. The full application will be assessed according to the following criteria: a. Operational and financial capacity - Do the applicant and, if applicable partners, have sufficient technical expertise and implementing capacity? (notably staffing, competence and experience of the issues to be addressed.) - Does the applicant present a reliable system for planning, monitoring and evaluation? - Does the applicant present a reliable system for internal financial management and control? - Does the applicant have stable and sufficient sources of finance? b. Relevance of the intervention - Relevance of the proposal to the particular needs and constraints of the target country(ies) or region(s), and of target groups and final beneficiaries. - Relevance of the proposal to the objective and priorities of the Call for Proposal.
c. Effectiveness and feasibility of the intervention - Is the Results Framework clear and feasible? - Is it plausible that the defined outputs will deliver the desired outcome(s)? - Does the proposal contain objectively verifiable indicators for the outputs and outcome(s) of the intervention? d. Sustainability of the intervention - Are the stakeholders and, if applicable, partners' level of involvement and participation in the intervention satisfactory? - Is the intervention likely to have a tangible outcome on its target groups? - Identified risks and risk management - Is there a sufficient risk analysis made, including relevant risk mitigationmeasures? e. Budget and cost-effectiveness of the intervention - Is the ratio between the estimated costs and the expected results reasonable? As in step 1 above, although these criteria are the principal basis for assessing proposals, strategic considerations will also be made regarding the nature of support (catalytic/innovative), whether or not the proposed support adds to a balance in geographic and thematic focus, as well as a balance in the spread of type of actors, so as to reflect the intentions of the support under the Strategy. Sida s consolidated assessment will be based on the criteria above and mentioned considerations and will form the basis of Sida s decision on support. 6 Notice to applicants Applicants will be notified by Sida in writing of the decision concerning their application. Sida does not have the obligation to motivate its decision on support. Sida would like to underline that notice of decision will not be given before the whole assessment process, including step 1 and 2 are finalised, and hence may take several months.
6.1 Further information regarding application Questions regarding this Call for Proposals may be sent via e-mail to the following e- mail address: ict4women@sida.se. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) will be found at this link: http://www.sida.se/ict4women.