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Call for proposals – Health and Rights for Women, Adolescent girls and Children

The assessment of the proposals submitted under this call has concluded and applicants have been informed of their results.

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Submission deadline: October 10, 2019, 12 p.m. (noon), Eastern Time

The Health and Rights for Women, Adolescent Girls and Children call for proposals is part of Canada’s historic investment to promote the health and rights of women and girls around the world, which was announced on June 4, 2019. Proposals sought under this call will adopt a feminist and sustainable approach to improve the health, human rights and well-being of diverse groups of women, adolescent girls and children.

The total amount of funding available under this call for proposals is approximately $325 million over five years. Global Affairs Canada may fund any number of proposals or none, up to the maximum funding available.

You must submit your application through the Partners@International portal before the deadline. If you are applying on behalf of a group of organizations that would sign the funding agreement with Global Affairs Canada, please ensure that each organization is registered in the Partners@International portal and has uploaded all required documents.

We will not accept any late submissions. To ensure that technical difficulties do not prevent you from submitting your proposal on time, we strongly suggest that you submit your application at least three (3) working days before the deadline of 12 p.m. (noon) Eastern Time on Thursday, October 10, 2019. Please read all portal instructions carefully.

Objective

This call for proposals will support projects that improve the quality of, access to, and demand for integrated health services and information for women, adolescents and children at the community, health facility and health system levels. At least 50% of the funding will be allocated to projects that address sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), particularly for women and adolescent girls, on identified critical gap areas:

  • reproductive health services
  • comprehensive sexuality education
  • family planning and contraceptives
  • safe and legal abortion and post-abortion care
  • sexual and gender-based violence (including child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation and cutting)
  • advocacy activities for SRHR  

Ultimate outcome

Under this call, your proposed project must contribute to the achievement of this ultimate outcome:

Intermediate outcomes

Your proposed project must also contribute to at least two of the following intermediate outcomes:

  • increased equitable use of health servicesFootnote 1 by diverse groups of women, adolescent girls and children’s rights-holders
  • improved provision of gender-responsiveFootnote 2, inclusive and accountable health services by health care providers for diverse groups of women, adolescent girls and children
  • improved effectiveness of key stakeholders, particularly women and girls’ rights organizations, to advocate for evidence-based, accountable and equitable health care policies, legal frameworks and services 

Organizations that receive funding under this call will be expected to work with Global Affairs Canada to ensure effective monitoring, evaluation and reporting on agreed results and indicator frameworks. Where appropriate, applicants should use the Feminist International Assistance Policy Indicators and other globally recognized health sector indicators. Global Affairs Canada will share additional guidance with successful applicants on reporting, including the use of key performance indicators.

You may refine the call’s ultimate and intermediate outcome statements to ensure they are grounded in the reality of your project design, making them more specific in terms of the who, what and where of your project. Refer to the Results-Based Management How-To Guide to ensure that your outcome statements respect Global Affairs Canada’s definition of intermediate and ultimate outcomes.

Your proposal must also demonstrate that your project will take a multi-sectoral approach grounded in the social and environmental determinants of health, rights and well-being to improve the quality and accessibility of health services for the most marginalized, including but not limited to:

  • address broader barriers to access faced by women and girls in all their diversity, particularly access to comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights
  • reduce social, cultural and structural barriers that limit access and informed decision-making around individual health choices, particularly for women, adolescents and girls
  • address persistent barriers to adequate nutrition and to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) (especially in health facilities)
  • address persistent barriers to social and economic empowerment for diverse groups of women and girls
  • reach adolescent populations that are poorly understood and largely underserved
  • strengthen sustainable and gender-sensitive health systems, including health-information systems, in partnership with local government partners
  • foster advocacy and capacity building with a range of stakeholders—such as women’s organizations, local governments, communities, traditional leaders, and men and boys—to enable constructive engagement and influence with decision-makers 

Gender equality

Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy states that: “no less than 95 percent of Canada’s bilateral international development assistance initiatives will target or integrate gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls.” Priority will be given to proposals that meet the requirement of targeting or fully integrating gender equality and women’s and girls’ empowerment in their design. Applicants are strongly recommended to refer to the Feminist International Assistance Gender Equality Toolkit for Projects website for help on designing proposals that target or fully integrate gender equality.

Applicants must ensure that the findings from their gender equality analysis are reflected in their theory of change.

Human rights

Successful proposals will reflect a human rights-based approach, demonstrating how the initiative’s planning and design incorporate the findings of a human rights analysis and consider the key human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination, inclusion and participation, transparency and accountability. Applicants should demonstrate how the proposed project will meaningfully include the most marginalized or vulnerable rights-holders and how it will seek to address human rights-related capacity gaps of stakeholders. Additional guidance on advancing human rights is available.

Proposals may contain advocacy activities aiming at lifting existing barriers and reducing the occurrence of harmful social norms and practices that prevent rights-holders from realizing their fundamental rights.

Environmental sustainability

An environmental analysis is required for all projects except where the environmental risks and opportunities are determined to be negligible. Successful proposals will also demonstrate understanding of the key environmental health risk factors (e.g. indoor air pollution, contaminated water, lack of adequate sanitation) that contribute to deaths, illnesses and disabilities, particularly for women, adolescent girls and children. They will also demonstrate understanding of opportunities related to environment-health linkages. Additional guidance on Environmental Integration Process is available.

Organization eligibility

Review the following eligibility screening requirements. We will not pre-assess or comment on the eligibility of specific potential applicants. To be eligible, you must meet each requirement and, where stipulated, provide supporting documentation. If your organization is submitting a proposal on behalf of a group of organizations that would sign the funding agreement with Global Affairs Canada, each organization (i.e. co-signatories) must meet all of the following requirements and provide documentation:

  • Your organization is a Canadian organization, legally incorporated in Canada and can provide proof of legal status (e.g. a letter of incorporation) along with a Canada Revenue Agency business number.
  • Your organization is registered in the Partners@International portal.
  • You must provide two separate financial statements for your organization’s most recent fiscal years. Audited statements are preferred. If this is not possible, statements must be signed by a member of the board of directors or delegate or by the owners. As financial statements usually provide comparative information from the previous year, these statements will be used to do a three-year trend analysis.
  • As a signatory, you may submit only one application under this call. You may also participate as a non-signatory partner on other applicants’ proposals.
    • If your organization submits more than one application under this call, as a signatory, we will only consider the application with the earliest submission time stamp.
  • You must provide an Organization Attestation signed by your organization’s chief financial officer, financial director or president. 

If you are unable to meet any of the above requirements, your organization will not be deemed eligible to apply under this call.

Required project parameters

Carefully review the parameters of this call and determine whether your project idea will fit. We will not respond to questions about the eligibility of your project idea. In order for your application to be considered for funding, you must be able to answer “yes” to all of the following statements:

  • Value: You are requesting Global Affairs Canada funding of at least $5 million and no more than $50 million.
  • Duration: Your proposed project will last at least five years but no more than seven years.
  • Geographic alignment: Your proposed project would take place in one or more official development assistance-eligible countries. Approximately 75% of the funding from this call will be allocated to projects that include activities taking place in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • Cost share: Your organization will provide at least 5% of the total eligible direct project costs over the life of the project in cash and/or in-kind in accordance with Global Affairs Canada’s Policy on Cost-Sharing for Grant and Non-Repayable Contribution Agreements.
  • Beneficiaries: A minimum of 60% of direct beneficiaries of the proposed project will be women and adolescent girls, taking into account the needs and rights of those most marginalized and most vulnerable. Your project will also work directly with men, boys and community leaders, recognizing their direct role in advancing gender equality.
  • Not-for-profit project: Your proposed project would not generate a profit for you or any other implementing organization.
  • Language: Your application package documents are complete and presented in either English or French. 

Your project may also include:

  • Construction activities: Refurbishment and minor structural works will be considered where necessary, such as if required for meeting site-specific WASH and biomedical waste management needs in existing health facilities. They will be considered on a case-by-case basis and should not exceed 20% of the total proposed budget. Construction of new facilities/structures will not be considered.
  • Engagement activities: Your project may include up to 5% of project direct costs that may be allocated to Canadian public engagement activities aimed at strengthening Canadian support for and participation in international assistance. These engagement activities should enable Canadians to better understand women and children’s health and rights programming and encourage them to take action to enable change. Ineligible public engagement activities include:
    • fundraising
    • annual general meetings
    • partisan political advocacy or lobbying
    • activities that take place outside Canada 

Your proposed project will not be assessed if does not conform to the above parameters because it cannot be considered for funding under this call.

Required project experience

You must be able to demonstrate in your application that your organization has the required experience, as noted below, to be considered for funding under this call. The signatory(ies) and/or non-signatory partners must provide two examples of recent past projects in Section 5.1 of the application form. Collectively, the two examples must demonstrate the following:

  • at least three years of experience working in women’s, adolescent girls’ and children’s health and rights in developing countries
  • at least three years of construction experience in developing countries, for applicants seeking to undertake structural works, including WASH 

Canadian organizations that do not meet the required project experience are encouraged to partner with other applicants.

Applicants unable to fulfill the above requirements are not eligible to apply under this call.

Additional guidance

Preference may be given to proposals that:

  • Adopt an inclusive, participatory and multi-sectoral approach to comprehensively addressing the health-related human rights of diverse groups of women, adolescents and children, working in conjunction with other key sectors (e.g. education, women’s social and economic empowerment, nutrition, WASH) to increase demand, use of and access to services, and to ensure sustainability.
  • Demonstrate collaboration, in the form of partnerships­ with Canadian civil society organizations, local government and other partners, research institutes, community and professional organizations, and the private sector that help to enable the scaling up and sustainability of innovative and evidence-based approaches to address persistent challenges.
  • Seek to strengthen the participation of all stakeholders, regardless of age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, ethnicity, race, religion, disability, migrant or refugee status.
  • Include innovative approaches that are well adapted to the specific context of their implementation.
  • Demonstrate clear strategies for addressing sustainability and local ownership, such as by applying a feminist approach to Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL) within projects and ensuring that knowledge generated through MEL activities are gender-sensitive, owned and used by beneficiaries and implementing partners in support of their social change agendas. 

How we assess your proposal

Please note that this call will use a one-step application process. The comparative assessment process is described below. In this call, applicants must submit a shortened full proposal.

Applications under this call will first undergo an eligibility check to verify that they meet all organization eligibility requirements and required project parameters listed in this call page.

Next, eligible applications will be assessed to ensure that applicant organizations demonstrate the required project experience. Organizations that do not meet the required project experience will not be further assessed. You will be notified if your organization is found to be ineligible or if it does not meet the project experience requirements.

Then, applications that meet these requirements will proceed to merit assessment as described in the How we assess your proposal website. This call for proposals will use the Full proposal assessment criteria.

Available resources

Many resources are available online to help you develop your application package. We encourage you to read the following tools and guidance before beginning the application process.

How to submit your application package

Important: Please note that if you intend to apply to this call for proposals, you must send an email to correspondance.pid@international.gc.ca by Thursday, October 3, 2019, requesting the budget template for this call. Please reference the Health and Rights for Women, Adolescent girls and Children call for proposals in your email when requesting the budget template. This template must be completed and uploaded to the portal along with all other documents, as outlined below. You are strongly encouraged to request the budget template as soon as possible.

In order to be considered in this call, you must submit your complete application package in the Partners@International portal before 12 p.m. (noon) Eastern Time on Thursday, October 10, 2019. Your application will not be considered for funding if you fail to meet the mandatory requirements, minimum standards and deadlines detailed below.

Your application package must include:

  • Health and Rights for Women, Adolescent girls and Children proposal form  (completed, with “Validated” label displayed on first page).
  • Two separate financial statements for the most recent fiscal years from each signatory (audited statements are preferred; if these are not available, the statements must be signed by a member of each signatory’s board of directors, by the board’s delegate, or by the owner(s); note also that since financial statements usually provide comparative information from the previous year, these statements will be used to do a three-year trend analysis).
  • Completed Organization Attestation form (separate forms for each organization that would sign the funding agreement with Global Affairs Canada, if applicable).
  • Completed Declarations and Guarantees form (separate forms for each organization that would sign the funding agreement with Global Affairs Canada, if applicable).
  • The Local Partner(s) - Information form.
  • Completed budget spreadsheet. 

As explained in How to apply for funding through a call, submitting a proposal through a call does not guarantee funding. Funding decisions will be made on the merit assessment of your application.

Accessing and using PDF forms

Use only Adobe Reader/Adobe Acrobat and Internet Explorer to work on the standardized PDFs to be submitted with your application package. If you use other software, the data you enter may not appear once submitted to the department, and the application will be considered ineligible.

If you are having difficulty downloading the proposal form, see Global Affairs Canada’s Help web page for guidance. Once downloaded, open the form directly in Adobe Reader only. Other software installed on your computer may try (and fail) to open the form using your default settings.

Questions on using the Partners@International portal

Please read and follow all the instructions for using the Partners@International portal (linked on the right-side menu). Do not open multiple windows within the portal as this may cause technical problems.

Do not try to register or submit at the last minute.

It may take up to 10 business days to register your organization. If you encounter technical difficulties while registering or trying to submit a proposal, send an email to partners-partenaires@international.gc.ca. Please note: during the last two weeks before a call closes, the service standard for replying to your enquiry is three (3) business days. Technical support for the portal is only available between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. ET, Monday to Friday.

Questions specific to this call

The webinar for this call took place on August 29, 2019. To receive a PDF version of the presentation please send a request to correspondance.pid@international.gc.ca

If you still have questions about this call after reading the general Questions and answers about applying for funding, please send them to correspondance.pid@international.gc.ca by 12 p.m. (noon) Eastern Time on Thursday, September 5, 2019. We will not respond to questions received after this deadline or questions on specific organizational circumstances or specific project proposals. Applicants who submit questions will not receive emails with responses to their questions. Instead, answers will only appear on the Questions and Answers page on the Call for proposals - Health and Rights for Women, Adolescent Girls and Children to ensure that all applicants have access to the same information at the same time.

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