Call for Concept Notes for Georgian Civil Society Organisations

News item | 01-11-2021 | 11:29

MATRA

MATRA is a Dutch abbreviation and stands for “societal transformation”. The objective of the MATRA fund is to contribute to sustainable societal transformation by supporting reforms in the areas of rule of law, good governance and democracy. Focus of MATRA in Georgia is implementation of the Association Agreement between Georgia and the EU.
Activities supported under the MATRA fund have to fall within the following areas:

• Rule of law, including reform of the judiciary;
• Public administration, including fight against corruption; promotion of integrity, transparency and accountability;
• Public order and law enforcement;
• Stability and security, with a focus on reconciliation, countering disinformation and prevention of hate speech;
• Democracy, including electoral processes and procedures, upholding the separation of powers and democratic participation, and inclusion of minorities.
   

Human Rights Fund

Promoting and protecting human rights worldwide is a priority in the foreign policy of the Netherlands. The Dutch human rights policy focuses on six human rights priorities. These are:

• Freedom of expression, press freedom, freedom of internet;
• Freedom of religion or belief (FoRB), including freedom not to believe; 
• Equal rights for LGBTQI persons;
• Support for human rights defenders and space for civil society;
• Equal rights for women and girls.
   

Eligibility criteria:
-    This call is open to independent, non-partisan Georgian civil society organisations, which are registered and based in Georgia.
-    An organisation can submit only one proposal and only under one instrument; that is, either under MATRA or under Human Rights Fund.
-    An organisation implementing a project funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Georgia as of 31 December 2021 cannot apply. In case of organisations previously funded by the Embassy of the Netherlands in Tbilisi, preference will be given to those with at least a one-year gap between the project end date and the start date of the new project.
-    Projects that largely or exclusively involve the delivery of goods or materials are not eligible;
-    Projects can have a proposed start date any time between 1 April 2022 and 1 December 2022. However, applicants must take into account that it may take up to several months for winning projects to have the contribution formally approved. The means that your project might actually start several months later than you have originally proposed  (but still in 2022.)
-    Budget of the project can be between GEL 30,000 and GEL 280,000.
-    Duration of the project: between 6 and 18 months.
 

Procedure and provisional timeline:
-    An organisation submits a concept note using the enclosed form by 1 December 2021,18:00 Geo time to TBI-projects@minbuza.nl;
-    Questions related to this call can only be asked at two webinars conducted via MSTeams platform: on 09 November 2021 at 10:00, and on 25 November 2021 at 17:00. If interested, please register via TBI-projects@minbuza.nl (write “Registration for the Webinar” in the Subject of your email.) Please note that questions submitted via email will not be answered.
-    Shortlisted applicants (based on the concept notes) will be informed by 10 January 2022  and will be requested to submit a full proposal within one month, by 10 February 2022.
-    Applicants who have not been selected will receive a rejection letter by 1 February 2022. 
-    Final selection will become known by 15 March 2022.
The Embassy of the Netherlands might deviate from the schedule above depending on the number of the received proposals and the time it may take to process and assess them.
Criteria for assessment of proposals: 
The projects team of the Embassy of the Netherlands in Georgia will be paying special attention to the following elements of the submitted concept notes:
-    Does the proposed activity fall under one of the priorities mentioned above; 
-    How innovative and original is the approach;
-    How big is the added value of the intervention – to what extend have other organisations already addressed this issue;
-    How realistic is the expected impact of the intervention.