call for proposals

Global Partnership for Social Accountability 5th Global Call for Proposals

May 2022

GPSA announces two new projects from its Fifth Global Call for Proposals!

GPSA’s Fifth Global Call for Proposals was launched in November 2021 to support civil society organizations (CSOs) and CSO Networks in implementing collaborative social accountability approaches that address critical governance and development challenges.

GPSA invited its opted-in countries, through the World Bank’s country management units, to express interest to participate in the CfP. GPSA then opened the application process for CSOs in the below referenced shortlist of countries and developing themes.

Eighteen CSOs from these countries applied for funding, and today we are pleased to announce the recipients of the 5th Global Call for Proposals grants:

• Armenia - Climate action, post-pandemic recovery, building a green and resilient economy. Proposal title: “Water for Life: Improving Governance for Accessible Water Resources”. Applicant: The Urban Foundation for Sustainable Development (UFSD, Urban Foundation). Amount: US$402k
• Kosovo - Green transition challenges. Proposal title: “Kosovo – Green Action”. Applicant: Balkan Green Foundation (BGF). Amount: US$500k

All proposals were subject to an initial two-step Identification/Concept Review process carried out by the respective CMUs, the GPSA Secretariat and an independent roster of technical experts. Following this review, the Secretariat presented for Steering Committee endorsement a list of pre-selected proposals in these countries to be implemented over the next three years, with a total funding envelope of US$902,000. The pre-selection of grantees was endorsed by the GPSA Steering Committee on February 25, 2022.

Commenting on proposals

Pre-selected proposals are sent to the governments of participating countries for a 10-day commenting period. After this, the proposals are made available for public comments for a 5-day period.

The revised project proposals submitted to the 5th Call for Proposals are being posted below as they become available for the 5-day public commenting period:

Grant Selection

• The Call prioritizes CSO-led collaborative social accountability approaches that entail coalition efforts that engage local communities and citizens including vulnerable groups, and work with public sectors, at local, state and federal levels. The goal is to co-create solutions to jointly identified problems in the selected thematic areas. Information generated from social accountability processes can enable for corrective measures to be taken, and improvement of policy implementation and delivery of services.
  
• CSO proposals will need to show how they will include marginalized and vulnerable groups in the social accountability processes. Importantly, it will be critical to make the links between the CSO-led processes and appropriate reform initiatives or programs led by the public sector at the local, state and federal levels. This will also be important in order to identify paths to scaling up the CSO-led mechanisms, and indeed their institutionalization through government delivery systems.


• Lead CSOs will also demonstrate clear objectives and methods for strengthening both civil society and state capacities, particularly for working adaptively and collaboratively, and for advancing social accountability knowledge and learning from implementation.

What are the priority themes of this CfP?

1. Health systems strengthening in the context of the COVID-19 recovery


2. Citizen voices and oversight for climate action (just transition and locally-led climate dialogues)


3. Cross-cutting themes: Inclusion, CivicTech

Eligibility

• Entities or groups with partisan associations


• Grant applications which include activities which, because of the high inherent risk of political interference, are likely to raise issues related to the World Bank’s mandate as enshrined in its Articles of Agreement. These activities include political dimensions in governance, for instance, support of efforts to help organize political parties, or to the organization, running and monitoring of elections; political campaigning; and


• Grant applications which include sectarian and religious proselytizing activities.

Grant Size

Criteria used by the GPSA for shortlisting of countries

• The GPSA can only give grants in opted-in countries.


• Government and World Bank country management demand in a given country, as well as alignment with the World Bank’s Country Partnership Framework;


• Synergies with current and pipeline World Bank operations;


• Potential impact of grant


• A longlist of “opted-in” countries prioritizes those that have not received a previous GPSA grant. Countries that have received a previous GPSA grant may be included if criteria (i), (ii) and (iv) are fulfilled. The GPSA secretariat will narrow down this longlist of countries based on the criteria above.

Orientation Session

How to Apply

1. Applications are submitted through the GPSA website: www.thegpsa.org
   
   • ✓
     Please visit the GPSA website and click on the link to the 5th Call for Proposals.
   • ✓
     Review your country’s priority theme(s) included in the country call for proposals.
   • ✓ Download the Word Application Form template.
   • ✓ Fill out the Application Form and submit it to the GPSA by email to GPSACall4Proposals@worldbank.org
2. Please note: all grant applications, without exception, must be submitted in English. The GPSA will not consider applications written in other languages.
3. If you have any questions about the grant application process, you may contact the GPSA’s Help Desk at gpsa@worldbank.org.

Questions

We encourage you to visit the Grant Making Process page to know more about the selection process. You can always contact the GPSA Help Desk by e-mail: GPSAcall4proposals@worldbank.org