GPSA countries

Grant Making / GPSA 4th Call for Proposals Countries / Benin

4th Global Call for Proposals: Benin

Human Capital: Early Childhood Services and Nutrition

Capital Humain: Services à la Petite Enfance et Nutrition

Improving Early Childhood Services: Participatory monitoring in districts (local communes) across Benin to improve the accountability of decentralized services (health, WASH, social protection, education, civil status and agriculture) and community care to meet child development needs and build human capital. The monitoring should reinforce the governance of decentralized services in districts, as well as the policy coordination of the National Food and Nutrition Council in the President’s office of the government bringing together key sectors involved. The proposal could include: interactive community radio to engage citizens around key services and behavioural changes; social dialogue to improve understanding of rights and mobilize the voice of families; public hearings for transparency in planning, budgeting and results of district services and to involve community groups in decision-making; social audits to identify needs to improve the services, particularly in underserved communities; and a community score card to assess the services. The monitoring approaches should capitalize on existing efforts, strengthen capacity already in place, adapt innovative practices piloted in Benin and similar country contexts, and feed into a district level results framework to reinforce the outcomes of services. The proposal should support the government’s Early Years Nutrition and Child Development Project supported by the World Bank, and build on ongoing efforts of key development partners, reinforcing non-government- government partnership. The approaches developed and implemented during the project should be replicable by national and local authorities for institutionalization in local government and have the potential to be transferable to other comparable project situations.

Améliorer les services à la petite enfance: Il s’agit de faire un suivi participatif pour améliorer la responsabilisation des services décentralisés (santé, eau-hygiène-assainissement, protection sociale, éducation, état civil et agriculture) pour répondre aux besoins du développement de l’enfant et renforcer le capital humain. Le suivi devrait renforcer la gouvernance des services décentralisés dans les communes, ainsi que la coordination des politiques mise en œuvre par le Conseil de l’Alimentation et de la Nutrition (CAN), dans les principaux secteurs concernés. La proposition pourrait inclure : une radio communautaire interactive pour engager les citoyens autour des services clés et des changements de comportement ; un dialogue social pour améliorer la compréhension des droits et mobiliser la voix des familles ; des audiences publiques pour la transparence dans la planification, la budgétisation et les résultats des services communaux et pour l’implication des groupes communautaires dans le processus décisionnel ; des audits sociaux pour identifier les besoins d’amélioration des services, particulièrement dans les communautés mal servies ; et une carte de score communautaire pour évaluer ces services. Les approches de suivi devraient s’appuyer sur les efforts existants, renforcer les capacités déjà en place, adapter les pratiques novatrices expérimentées au Bénin et dans des contextes nationaux similaires, et alimenter au niveau communal un cadre de résultats pour renforcer les résultats des services. La proposition devrait appuyer le projet gouvernemental de nutrition et de développement de la petite enfance soutenu par la Banque mondiale et s’appuyer sur les efforts continus des principaux partenaires de développement, en renforçant le partenariat Société civile- Gouvernement. Les approches élaborées et mises en œuvre au cours du projet devraient pouvoir être reproduites par les autorités nationales et locales aux fins de les institutionnaliser dans les administrations locales et pourraient être transférables à d’autres situations comparables du projet.

General Grant Objectives

Grants are intended to provide strategic and sustained support to CSO projects with the following objectives:

Addressing critical governance and development challenges through social accountability processes that involve citizen feedback and participatory methodologies geared to helping governments and public-sector institutions address these challenges. Special emphasis is on problems that affect extreme poor and marginalized populations.

Strengthening civil society’s capacities for social accountability by investing in CSOs’ institutional strengthening and through mentoring of small, nascent CSOs by well-established, larger CSOs with a track record on social accountability. The GPSA will prioritize proposals that a) are implemented by CSOs’ networks, alliances or partnerships, b) include on-granting from lead implementing CSO and CSO partners.
General Grant Selection

The call prioritizes collaborative social accountability approaches, with the objective of generating systematic citizen feedback and its use by public sector institutions at the local, state and federal levels. Collaborative social accountability consists of inclusive citizen participation processes, whereby civil society organizations (CSOs) facilitate collaborative problem-solving spaces between citizens, particularly marginalized and vulnerable groups, and public sector institutions responsible for decision-making. The information produced should be used to introduce corrective measures and improvements in policy-making and implementation, including responses co-produced and co-implemented between citizens and the public sector.

Proposals will have to demonstrate that they will use inclusive participation approaches to engage citizens, particularly marginalized and vulnerable groups, in generating systematic feedback and engaging them in collaborative problem-solving. They will also have to link participatory mechanisms to ongoing initiatives led by public sector institutions at the local, state and federal levels aimed at reforming governance in public security. Proposed interventions may combine a target geographic area but must be clearly linked to (a) public sector initiatives at higher levels (state or federal), and (b) the possibility of scaling up such mechanisms to cover larger geographic areas. The high-level objective will be to contribute to increasing transparency, accountability and inclusive citizen participation in the relevant sectors, as well as improving state and civil society capacities, knowledge and learning on the use of collaborative social accountability mechanisms in the sectors outlined in the national thematic descriptions.

Before applying, please make sure to read the Application Guidelines and visit the Call for Proposals page.

The GPSA hosted an orientation session for CSOs on April 24, 2019. The session covered application guidelines, grant selection process, and further details about the 4th Call for Proposals, and responded to questions from participants who attended the session. Watch a recording and access the presentation slides from the orientation session.

4TH CALL FOR PROPOSALS