Call for Proposals: ACT Global Civil Society Platform on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls

Deadline: 02-Sep-2024

The European Union and UN Women have partnered to launch a new programme called Advocacy, Coalition Building and Transformative Feminist Action (ACT) to End Violence Against Women.

As part of the Advocacy, Coalition Building and Transformative Feminist Action (ACT) to End Violence Against Women Programme, UN Women is in the process of identifying one or multiple programme partners (Responsible Parties) for the set-up and co-hosting of a new Global ACT CSO Platform. The objective of the platform is to convene women’s rights and civil society organizations working to end violence against women and girls, develop a shared advocacy agenda to increase momentum and amplify advocacy priorities of women’s rights organizations and movements and carry the priority actions related to forthcoming key advocacy moments and opportunities.

The ACT programme is focused on strengthening global and regional advocacy, coalition building and transformative feminist action to EVAW. ACT will be implemented over three years in two regions initially: Africa and Latin America, with a global component to accelerate impact and position the priorities of women’s rights movements in global fora across a wide range of related issues.

It will build on the EU-UN Spotlight Initiative’s results and lessons learned in 26 countries to strengthen women’s rights movements at the regional and global levels and to elevate women’s rights advocacy priorities in regional and global policy making and intergovernmental fora to build greater momentum globally in EVAW.

Its overall objective is to accelerate efforts to eliminate all forms of VAW, with two overarching objectives:

To strengthen coalition building, networking, leadership, and resilience of global and regional feminist women’s rights movements; and
To increase and enhance advocacy, campaigning, to influence policymaking on EVAW through multistakeholder partnerships and coalitions.

The ACT programme will achieve its results through direct investments in global and regional feminist women’s rights organizations to strengthen their institutional capacities, resilience, coalition building, networking, and leadership. It will also coordinate and amplify a shared advocacy agenda that is designed in collaboration with women’s rights organizations, bringing on board multi-stakeholder partners and new actors to accelerate efforts to end violence against women and girls. ACT will ensure strong connections and engagement with women’s rights movements at the national level to ensure that global and regional level advocacy is informed by grassroots activists as well as to generate impact and results at the country level.

Key Objectives of the Platform include:

To facilitate networking, strategizing and coalition building between WROs across regions to strengthen the global EVAWG movement.
To strengthen global advocacy on EVAWG through consensus building around a shared advocacy agenda to increase momentum on EVAWG.
To elevate and amplify the voices and advocacy priorities of grassroots WROs and survivors to drive transformative change.
To strengthen solidarity and collective care in pushing forward against the pushback.
To facilitate intersectional and intersectoral alliances to foster partnerships between WROs and CSOs across diverse sectors including for example digital rights activists, climate justice, disability rights, LGBTQI+, indigenous women, afro descendent women, youth led movements amongst others.

Structure, Governance and Management

Structure of the Global CSO Platform
- The ACT Global CSO Platform will be civil society-led, co-convened by UN Women and a feminist women’s rights organization or a consortium of feminist women’s rights organizations with diverse capacities and areas of expertise, such as convening and coordination of networks, advocacy, communication, and policy analysis. UN Women will provide incubation support to the ACT CSO Platform as it sets up its operations and develops the shared advocacy agenda and work plan.
Governance & Decision Making
- As a first step, UN Women and the ACT Programme’s Civil Society Steering Committee will act as an advisory group for the CSO Platform to allow continuity and clear linkages with the ACT Programme. The role of the Civil Society Steering Committee is to be a sounding board and provide direction to the platform as it develops its structure and work plan. Over time, the ACT CSO platform will determine in collaboration with members the best structure based on the available resources, the needs, and the desired engagement of membership. The governance and decision making of the platform should be streamlined whilst ensuring participation and meaningful engagement of structurally marginalized and intersectional groups, local and grassroots groups, addressing unequal power dynamics and ensuring transparency and accountability.
Membership
- The ACT CSO Platform to End Violence Against Women and Girls will be open to all feminist women’s rights organizations working to EVAWG committed to the shared advocacy agenda. In various discussions with feminist women’s rights organizations, there was a strong call for an inclusive and open platform that incorporates the experiences of grassroots women and girls, especially from the global south/majority. Members should fulfill one of the descriptions below:
  - Women’s Rights/Feminist Organizations engaged in EVAWG advocacy.
  - Women’s Rights/Feminist Organizations working at the intersection of EVAWG and other intersectional issues: For example, LBTQI, disability, young women, indigenous women, survivor networks, and young women-led organizations to name a few.
  - Women’s Rights/Feminist Organizations working at the intersection of EVAWG and other sectoral issues; For example, Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, Digital Rights, Climate Justice, Women’s economic empowerment, etc.
- Once in place, the ACT CSO Platform, with support from UN Women, will invite WROs to join the platform and will manage membership engagement and coordination.

Funding Information

The Total budget for this proposal should be a maximum1 of 850,000 USD (The maximum budget for each Action Area is: 300,000 USD for Action Area 1 and 550,000 USD for Action Area 2). Applicants may apply for one or both of the two Action Areas. Applicants/Consortia with the capacity to carry out both Action Areas are strongly encouraged to submit proposals for both Action Areas.

Timeframe

The duration of the partner agreement with the responsible party will be from October 2024 – June 2026

Roles and Responsibilities

UN Women: will serve as a strategic partner to the ACT CSO platform and as a co-convener. This includes:
- Facilitating political engagement with high-level decision-makers, policymakers, Governments, and donors
- Building bridges and facilitating collaboration with other multistakeholder platforms such as the Generation Equality Action Coalitions.
- Facilitating engagement and collaboration with the EDVAW Platform of Independent Expert Mechanisms on Violence against Women to promote greater accountability of member states commitments to EVAWG
- Build bridges between CSOs and other sectoral actors, e.g., private sector, tech sectors, etc.
- Convening CSOs during key strategic moments
- Supporting the Platform with developing strategic communication: UN Women can support the platform to work with advertising agencies and other experts, e.g., behavioral experts to design impactful and strategic messaging and campaigns
- Engaging influencers to support the dissemination of advocacy priorities and campaigns
- Resource mobilization for the Platform and ACT Programme more broadly

Expected Results

UN Women is seeking to engage one or multiple programme partners (responsible parties) for the setup of the ACT Global Civil Society Platform. The overarching roles and functions of the ACT CSO Platform to be carried out are outlined within the below two Action Areas:
- Action Area 1: Strengthen coalition building, networking, leadership and resilience of global and regional feminist women’s rights movements
  - Max budget: $300,000 USD
  - This Action Area involves working with UN Women to ensure the set-up and co-hosting of the ACT Global CSO Platform on EVAW, convening women’s and civil society rights organizations to create space for solidarity, organizing and strategizing including through cross-sectoral and intersectional alliances. The ACT Global Platform on EVAW will be convened as a virtual network. The responsible party should work with UN Women to identify the best possible platform/tools for engagement with the ACT Global CSO platform members.
  - This could include:
    - Convening women’s rights organizations to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and experiences on EVAWG to foster cross-regional learning as well as to create a space for feminist networking, strategizing and co-creating.
    - Support collective care and solidarity action: Provide a space for collective care and to share information and strengthen access to protection mechanisms, relevant trainings (such as for digital safety), providing a space for activists to explore the challenges of feminist activism and supporting activists and organizations to embed self and collective care and protection in their work.
    - Facilitate skill sharing and capacity strengthening: The platform will be a space for members to share their skills and expertise and strengthen the capacity of WROs to enhance their advocacy and leadership on EVAWG including through dedicated learning sessions (e.g. on VAWG data, accountability mechanisms, communications, technology and innovation to name a few) and facilitating cross-sectoral and intersectional spaces to enable learning and cross-fertilization across diverse fields e.g., climate justice, digital rights, disability rights to name a few.
  - Key indicators of success within 2 years include:
    - A more cohesive and coordinated global movement to EVAWG.
    - Number of coalitions, networks and organizations that become members of the ACT CSO Platform on EVAWG and actively collaborate in the space.
    - Number of spaces created for feminist and women’s rights organizations to come together to, share knowledge and learning, to exchange on policy advocacy priorities and to build upon self-care practices and ways of working.
    - Number of civil society organizations that have strengthened capacity to exercise their leadership role towards EVAWG.
    - Number of organizations representing diverse and intersecting sectors of women’s rights organization engaged and/or number of intersecting sectors engaged in the ACT Global CSO platform on EVAWG.
- Action Area 2: Strengthen advocacy and campaigning to influence policymaking on EVAW
  - Max budget: 550,000 USD
  - This Action Area is focused on the development and implementation of a shared advocacy agenda to increase momentum on ending violence against women and girls and amplify the advocacy priorities of women’s rights movements in global advocacy spaces. The organization/consortia will work with UN Women and the ACT CSO Platform to coordinate and implement EVAWG advocacy and communications strategies. This includes:
    - Developing a shared advocacy agenda through inclusive processes to agree advocacy asks and messaging at global and regional levels to influence policy and legislative change, and institutional practices related to EVAWG as well as to mobilize resources for the EVAW field.
    - Developing a road map/action plan, identifying key advocacy strategies, carrying out consensus building around key priorities, messages, and actions; developing expert papers, shadow reports, policy advocacy papers, engagement and lobbying of decision makers, development of joint statements, as well as advocacy strategies for key moments, and events including global and regional intergovernmental and policymaking fora amongst others. This should be anchored around the Beijing+30 review process and should be developed in a participatory, collaborative and inclusive manner with member organizations of the ACT CSO Platform. Key advocacy moments could include; International Day for the Elimination of EVAWG, AWID 2024, CSW69/Beijing+ 30, Financing for Development 2025, the High Level Political Forum and UNGA80), the 2024 G20 Rio de Janeiro Summit, amongst others.
    - Mobilize solidarity actions in response to threats, crises, rollback in laws and policies or other opportunities related to EVAWG, including through developing joint statements, , petitions on EVAWG
    - Facilitating cross-sectoral collaboration and advocacy: Forge strategic partnerships with organizations and relevant stakeholders, including across intersecting sectors, to advance the joint advocacy agenda.
    - Co-creating a comprehensive communication strategy in cooperation with UN Women to engage relevant stakeholders and mobilize support for the joint advocacy agenda using innovative and strategic communication approaches.
    - Developing and disseminating policy advocacy campaigns, communication and advocacy products and materials on specific advocacy priorities in cooperation with UN Women.
    - In partnership with UN Women providing communication support to members of the ACT CSO platform on EVAWG to support members with communication training, and tools and to help them design compelling advocacy messages and adapt EVAWG campaigns to their contexts.
  - Key indicators of success within 2 years include:
    - A clear shared advocacy agenda on EVAWG with buy-in from women’s rights movements globally developed.
    - 2-year advocacy plan developed leveraging key strategic opportunities to advance key advocacy priorities.
    - Number of coordinated actions by women’s rights organizations/coalitions and multistakeholder partnerships at global and regional level to advocate jointly on EVAW.
    - Number of cross-sectorial alliances between ending violence against women (EVAW) experts and other sectors established and/or strengthened.
    - Number of advocacy and communication products that create awareness and visibility for the EVAWG priorities developed.
Depending on the proposals received UN Women will, identify either:
- One responsible party for both action areas which could either be a global feminist women’s rights organization or a consortium of global and regional feminist women’s rights organizations that will be responsible for both of the Action Areas outlined in the following section.
- Two responsible parties i.e one responsible party per action area. In this case it could either be two global feminist women’s rights organizations (one organization per action area) or consortia of feminist women’s rights organizations that will each be responsible for a specific Action Area of the ACT Global Civil Society Platform.
The selected programme partners will be expected to work in close coordination and collaboration in carrying out the respective Action Areas they are responsible for, including in convening women’s rights and civil society organizations working to end violence against women and girls as part of the activities within each Action Area.

Competencies

For the ACT Global CSO platform to be successful, the global feminist women’s rights organization, or consortium of global and regional organizations must meet the following criteria:
- Must be a global feminist women’s rights organization or a consortium of global and regional feminist women’s rights organizations.
- Must have demonstrable experience in movement building and coordination and capacity to convene women’s rights organizations across regions globally.
- Expertise and at least five years of experience in the field of ending violence against women and girls with diverse capacities and areas of expertise, such as policy analysis, global advocacy and feminist campaigning to influence policy decisions (including through the development of joint statements, shadow reports, briefs and other policy advocacy actions), engaging in accountability mechanisms and global policy spaces. In exceptional circumstances three years of experience may be accepted.
- Demonstrable capacity to bring together feminist women’s rights and civil society organizations to build consensus, managing diverse perspectives, co-create strategies and tactics to advance a collective advocacy agenda across regions globally.
- Experience in strategic communications, developing advocacy campaigns, awareness-raising.
- Experience with and capacity to carry out grant management, if grantmaking is included in the proposal.
- Experience in Partnership Development, including experience engaging with different stakeholders, including Governments, policymakers, donors, CSOs, etc.
Note: As this call for proposal is for the set-up and hosting of a Global ACT CSO Platform, proposals must be global in scope. Applicants from country level organizations or proposals focused on country level interventions or interventions in only one region are not eligible for this specific call for proposals.
If applying as a consortium, please note the following:
- The lead organization must be specified in the proposal, so it is clear which organization is the lead organization and which organizations are sub-partners. There can only be one lead organization. Other consortium members are considered sub-partners. N.B. country level organizations are not eligible for this call for proposals.
- The lead organization must meet the competencies criteria outlined above or must demonstrate clearly how collectively with sub-partner(s) they meet the above criteria.
- The lead organization must also meet all the minimum criteria outlined in Annex B-1.
- The lead organization must be a global or regional women’s rights organization pursuing feminist objectives.
- International Non-Governmental Organizations, whose core mandates is not on advancing gender equality and women’s rights are not eligible, because the ACT Programme seeks to strengthen feminist women’s rights organizations.