Call for Interest: Women 2030 Sub-grant for National Monitoring and Review of the Sustainable Development Goals and Development Justice

 DEADLINE: Friday, 8 July 2016

APWLD is inviting women’s rights and feminist organizations from Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Fiji to be part of the Women2030 Sub-grant: National Monitoring and Review of the Sustainable Development Goals and Development Justice. This long term sub-granting project aims to build the capacity of women’s rights and feminist organizations to monitor and review sustainable development policies (2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development & Climate). And at the same time, strengthen movements in their capacity, evidence and their advocacy to promote Development Justice.

Rationale:

Since 2012 Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) has been advocating for a transformative development framework that addresses the structural causes of inequalities and fulfil promises to women’s rights. APWLD, along with civil society in the Asia Pacific region, called for the Development Justice framework that seeks to reduce inequalities of wealth, power and resources, between countries, between rich and poor and between men and women. After 2 years of negotiations and tireless engagement from APWLD members and other women’s rights organizations and networks, a set of 17 goals and 169 targets were adopted by the United Nations as the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

While the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is universal in scope and addresses a broad range of issues compared to its predecessor, the Millenium Development Goals, it remains to be seen if governments are able to implement them and deliver just and equitable development that promotes people’s rights, dignity and wellbeing. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is not a binding agreement and the United Nations has demonstrated repeated failures to enforce state accountability. States have recognised the systemic causes of human rights violations and erosion of sustainable development, they have reiterated their promises to fulfil their human rights obligations yet inequalities deepen and the global climate catastrophe continues to get worse.

It is therefore the role of civil society to ensure that the movements we fostered, the space we have carved out and achievements in our advocacy in the process of establishing the SDGs persist. We must ensure that there is transparent, inclusive and meaningful opportunities for civil society engagement in the monitoring and review phase of the SDGs. The monitoring and review of the SDGs by civil society in the national, regional and international fora is critical to ensuring the implementation of the goals. Through this exercise, civil society is able to hold their governments accountable, and address any failures in progress to achieve the goals and targets.

It is also equally important that we continue to strengthen our movements towards Development Justice. We must not allow for the people’s transformative development agenda to be subsumed under the expansive work of monitoring the SDGs. Concurrent to the monitoring and review project, as we hold our governments accountable to the promises they have made, we also need to support our movements, build capacity, and gather evidence to tackle systemic drivers of inequalities.

Overall Objective:

Build capacity of feminist, women’s and gender civil society organizations to advance local, national and regional gender-responsive sustainable development policies (2030 Agenda & climate), through participation in policy development and monitoring, mobilising citizen’s support, demonstrating best practices and advocating for human rights and development justice.

Specific Objective:

• Develop the capacity of feminist movements and women’s rights organizations to do evidence based advocacy for the monitoring and review of the Sustainable Development Goals
• Foster knowledge and resources on the impact of development policies, practices and projects on women at national level by monitoring through the Development Justice indicators
• Establish strategic advocacy plans and opportunities to support women’s own position and solutions for development policy at national level, regional and international level through RCEM or the Women’s Major Group
• Strengthen institutional development of partner organization through leadership development and movement building for Development Justice

Scope of Work:

The Women2030 Sub-grant: National Monitoring and Review of the Sustainable Development Goals and Development Justice is a 12 month project (August 2016 – July 2017). Within this period APWLD will convene two regional meetings of partners for capacity development, advocacy strategizing and network opportunities. The following is a draft timeline and subject to change.

Expected Outputs:

• National Civil Society Report
• Government Dialogue and Advocacy Plan
• Consultation with community members and civil society
• Media engagement
• Program Narrative and Finance Report
• Evaluation

Support provided by APWLD:

Successful applicants will be given a grant of about $ 8,000- 10,000 USD to contribute to the salary cost of a staff coordinator who will oversee the project and cover direct expenses for national or local consultations. Secretariat and technical support will be available to successful applicants, including providing resource materials, methods and tools to support the national monitoring and review of the SDGs. APWLD will also provide at least two regional trainings to bring together all sub-granting partners for capacity building, advocacy strategizing and network opportunities throughout the year.

Selection Criteria:

Since the objective of this project is to monitor and review the Sustainable Development Goals nationally, it is important that applying organisations are familiar with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development or Climate related policies.

We are seeking non-governmental, non-profit women’s rights and feminist organisations from the following countries: Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, and Thailand who demonstrate the following:

• Commitment to the enjoyment and realisation of the human rights of women at community level in Asia Pacific, particularly of the most marginalised (young, rural, indigenous, migrant, Dalit women and/or women in other minority groups),
• Capacity and commitment to fulfil the monitoring and review project for 12 months;
• Commitment to the development justice framework;
• Able to provide a dedicate staff coordinator for the project and to write a National Civil Society Report
• Able to bring a broad range of community members, civil society and development actors for consultations

APWLD will consider the following when selecting the partner organizations for this project:

• Must be from one of the target countries for this 2016 – 2017
• Organizational capacity to successfully implement the monitoring and review project
• Experience in advocacy work related to the SDGs and Development Justice

Application:

Interested organizations should submit the following by 8 July 2016 to Leanne (Leanne@apwld.org):

• Completed application form
• Budget proposal