Deadline: 24-Jan-23

Expertise France is seeking proposals from organizations for its L’Initiative to strengthen the role of key and vulnerable populations in relation to HIV, tuberculosis and / or malaria to improve their health and well-being.

Aim

This call for proposals aims to select projects complementary to and/or supporting the Global Fund to strengthen the role of key and vulnerable populations in improving their health and environment

• Implementing adapted, gender-sensitive advocacy and empowerment approaches with a view to promoting human rights and improving access to health services;
• Improving the quality of health services and access to them by and for key and vulnerable populations, through adapted, gender-sensitive and community-integrated approaches. Projects must be catalytic – i.e. they should be capable of changing practices and / or policies. Consideration of the potential for scale-up will be viewed favorably. L’Initiative is a donor that encourages innovative and pilot approaches.

Grant Information

• The total grant amount from L’Initiative must cover at least 50% of the project budget and be between €650,000 and €5,000,000.
• The inclusion of co-financing of at least 10% of the total project budget is mandatory for organizations with total annual costs (expenditure) of more than 5 million Euros.

Duration

Project duration must be between 36 and 48 months.

Geographical Coverage

Projects may be implemented in one or more countries. Projects must not exceed three implementation countries unless they are backed by a network or a pre-existing regional non-governmental organization. In these cases, projects must not exceed five implementation countries. Multi-country projects must be part of a clearly justified regional dynamic.

Target Beneficiaries for Projects

Target beneficiaries for projects are the following – applicants are not obliged to reach all the populations mentioned below, or to address all of the multiple vulnerabilities:

• Key populations: key populations are those most at-risk or affected by at least one of the three diseases and who are stakeholders involved in the response. They generally have reduced access to services and may be criminalized and / or marginalized.

The following groups are generally considered to be key populations:

• For HIV: people living with HIV, men who have sex with men, male and female sex workers and their clients, transgender people, people who use drugs and their partners, people in prisons or detention centers, refugees, migrants, displaced or mobile populations.
• For tuberculosis: people living with HIV, people who use drugs, people in prisons or detention centers, refugees, migrants, displaced or mobile populations.
• For malaria: pregnant women and children under five, indigenous populations living in regions where malaria is endemic, refugees, migrants, displaced or mobile populations.

Other vulnerable populations: populations that are more vulnerable in a particular context and that do not fall into the categories mentioned above, including, children and adolescent girls, young girls and women and people living with disabilities.

As different vulnerable populations are not homogeneous groups, this call for projects encourages a focus on intersectional ties (multiple vulnerabilities), such as belonging to different key populations (e.g. sex worker and drug user), to different socio-ethnic groups, age categories etc.

Types of Eligible Activities

• Capacity and skills strengthening of national and community actors;
• Developing population empowerment strategies to increase the impact of health policies and services, and support services adapted to the needs of key and vulnerable populations.
• Developing and implementing tailored and targeted advocacy plans for systematic consideration of the needs of key and vulnerable populations in the project’s intervention strategies
• Effective involvement and representation of key and vulnerable populations in coordination and decision-making mechanisms
• Promoting community-based approaches by and for key and vulnerable populations in order to provide them with appropriate services at community level,
• All sexual and reproductive health and rights

Lead applicants must take into account the following points

• Vulnerable populations must be involved throughout the project, to ensure optimal impact and lasting ownership;
• Projects must pay particular attention to consistency and synergy with interventions implemented by other country level stakeholders;
• Projects must focus as much as possible on the continuum of care for target populations;
• Interventions targeting sex workers, who often face multiple vulnerabilities, are encouraged;
• Projects may include operational research activities (e.g. establishing a baseline, testing an innovative approach or tools, using social science methodologies to demonstrate the relevance and effectiveness of a selected approach), but they must not constitute the main focus of a project;
• In order for proposed activities to be relevant, it is crucial for projects to include a cross-cutting approach to gender in their design, implementation and coordination. Projects must specifically take account of the needs of women, men, and people who do not adhere to gender norms. They must aim to bridge existing inequalities and transform the roles assigned by society to men and women, as well as the power relations between men and women, which reinforce these inequalities, particularly in terms of vulnerability to pandemics and access to care. This gender mainstreaming approach also relates to key populations, which do not constitute a homogeneous population group, have different needs according to their gender and their age, and often experience violence, particularly gender-based violence. In this respect, L’Initiative strongly encourages lead applicants to include a dedicated or general objective in their proposals that explicitly focuses on promoting women’s rights and gender equality.

Eligibility Criteria

There are three potential types of project involvement under this call for projects:

• The “lead applicant” is the organization that submits the letter of intent and completes the full proposal if they are pre-selected. Lead applicants are the sole recipients of L’Initiative grants.
• “Implementing partners” are involved in the design and implementation of the project and the lead applicant delegates a part of the budget to them. The project must be carried out with at least one implementing partner.
• “Associated stakeholders” are other organizations linked to the project but are not sub-granted to (other donors, beneficiaries, national institutions, etc.).

Expertise France will check in the first instance that projects submitted meet all of the eligibility criteria below:

Maximum Numbers of Applications

• For this call for proposals, organizations can be the lead applicant for a maximum of two projects.
• In addition, organizations can only submit three projects across all the 2023 L’Initiative calls for proposals as lead applicant. There is no limit with regard to being an implementing partner or associated stakeholder.

Including co-financing will be viewed favorably for other organizations

In the event that the submitted project receives AFD or Expertise France co-financing, which is either confirmed or anticipated, or any other French bilateral financial or human support, the lead applicant must:

• Provide a full transparent overview of the project and its financing from the point of the statement of intent (achievements, request, period, type of contract, reference, etc.) and,
• If there is co-financing from another French stakeholder, anticipate that consultation between the French co-financers will take place prior to funding being approved to ensure that accountability requirements are met with regard to their supervisory body and to prevent the risk of financing duplication.
• The lead applicant must have sufficient management capacity to manage the requested budget;
• The average annual cost of the project must not exceed 70% of the total annual costs (expenses) of the lead applicant. For the purpose of this call for projects, total costs (expenditure) are calculated based on the 2021 financial report (income statement and balance sheet), validated at a General Assembly or any other governance body.

For more information, visit Expertise France.