Applications Invited for Civil Society Organizations to expand women's leadership and political participation: WYDE| Women's Leadership

Follow us@ngobox

About the Organization

UN Women is the United Nations entity dedicated to gender equality and the empowerment of women. A global champion for women and girls, UN Women was established to accelerate progress on meeting their needs worldwide.

UN Women supports UN Member States as they set global standards for achieving gender equality, and works with governments and civil society to design laws, policies, programmes and services needed to ensure that the standards are effectively implemented and truly benefit women and girls worldwide. It works globally to make the vision of the Sustainable Development Goals a reality for women and girls and stands behind women’s equal participation in all aspects of life, focusing on four strategic priorities:

• Women lead, participate in and benefit equally from governance systems
• Women have income security, decent work and economic autonomy
• All women and girls live a life free from all forms of violence
• Women and girls contribute to and have greater influence in building sustainable peace and resilience, and benefit equally from the prevention of natural disasters and conflicts and humanitarian action

About the Grant

The WYDE | Women’s Leadership Initiative is a collaborative global effort aimed at advancing women’s full and effective political participation and decision-making at all levels, especially those most often left furthest behind. Women and young women leaders remain unequally represented in decision making globally due to entrenched barriers to the full and effective participation of women in public life. Although women’s political participation has increased over the past 30 years, power imbalances remain. Globally, women constitute only 26.6 per cent of national legislators, 35.5 per cent of local government members and 22.8 of all cabinet ministers.

As a multistakeholder initiative, funded by the European Union, UN Women together with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), the InterParliamentary Union (IPU), and the United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) are implementing the Women and Youth Democratic Engagement (WYDE)| Women’s Leadership component through the project titled “Advancing Women’s Political Participation and Decision-Making through Social Norms Change, Networking and Global Advocacy”.

Over three years, this initiative seeks to address the multiple challenges to women’s participation through advocacy, networking, and transformative social norms change. The programme will leverage collective action, partnerships, coordination, knowledge, and resources at global and regional levels, and specifically through:

• Advocacy & Networking: Support women’s leadership through coordinated advocacy, intergenerational networking and access to knowledge and resources.
• Global Knowledge Sharing: Increase and share global knowledge on women’s political participation for use by policy makers and to inform capacity building initiatives.
• Social Norms Change: Promote transformative gender social norms through evidence-based advocacy and capacity building.

Underpinning this work is the goal to ensure that women are perceived as equally legitimate political actors as men in decision-making processes and institutions. To accomplish these goals requires countering entrenched social norms which limit women’s rights and participation, and necessitates raising awareness and sensitizing community leaders, men and boys, as well as the public at large through specific and deliberate actions. Civil society and women’s rights organizations are fundamental in carrying out social norms change through demand driven approaches.

Therefore, through WYDE, UN Women and partners will contribute to strengthening leadership and networking of women in public life including through existing dialogue mechanisms, at global, regional, and local levels. One of the approaches used is to strengthen partnerships with women’s organizations and networks to support the implementation of commitments made by the Generation Equality Forum (GEF) Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership (AC6) by directly funding civil society and women’s rights organizations who are active AC6 commitment makers dedicated to advancing women’s political participation and with a specific focus on young women. This funding, with an initial amount of about $865,000, will directly support women’s organizations and youth movements which are advancing the AC6’s targets to support women and girls’ meaningful participation, leadership, and decision-making power.

From the start of the AC6’s work, women’s organizations and feminist and youth movements have driven advocacy, networking, and exchange of good practices, especially amongst youth and groups of women that face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination and who entered the Generation Equality journey with the ambition that it would unlock new resources to support their engagement. This funding will ensure that much needed resources are provided to this group of engaged civil society members to reach their goals under the Generation Equality Action Coalition’s mandate.

To be able to fully meet their potential as leaders and commitment makers, women’s organizations and youth leaders require long-term funding to strengthen and capacitate their organizations, promote knowledge-sharing and cross-learning and common action to meet the AC6 targets. The EU-UN shared ambition to fast-track progress on achieving SDG 5 gender equality goals, and to support partners to advance women’s participation in public life globally, presents an important opportunity to leverage collective action, partnerships, coordination, knowledge, and resources at a global level to help address key obstacles to the full and effective participation and decision-making of women and girls in all their diversity.

Description of expected results:

This funding will enable UN Women to support the implementation of the AC6 commitments, through directly supporting civil society and women’s rights organizations, including young women’s organizations. Civil society organizations and women’s rights organizations are on the forefront of shifting and redefining social norms to promote gender equality. Specifically, organizations funded through WYDE will focus on creating space and consultations to empower feminist networks, build capacity, provide networking spaces towards creating lasting and transformative social norms change by AC6 commitment makers over the next two years. Implementation of funded projects will directly work to strengthen the leadership of women in public life through dialogue mechanisms at global, regional and local levels.

Applicant’s work should focus on actions to accelerate change to social norms and shift cultural attitudes which negatively portray women’s roles in communities and society while aligning with the goals and commitments of the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership. Through coalition-building, organizations will work to change the harmful social norms which often prevent women leaders from gaining traction and creating long-term change. It is envisioned that results from the funded organizations will enable these shifts in societal attitudes through implementing new or existing evidence-based methodologies.

A strong and sustained women’s movement is the basis for achieving the intended results of the WYDE Women’s Leadership programme. To advance the women’s movement, organizations should seek to promote and expand a transformative and intersectional approach to decision-making and leadership which could include intergenerational exchanges between seasoned women’s advocates and youth leaders. This may include mentoring young leaders to build the next generation of strong feminist leaders through coalition-building.

Therefore, seeking to expand women’s leadership and political participation, WYDE welcomes applicants from the Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movement’s and Leadership (AC6) to respond to this Call for Proposals as lead applicants. Based on expertise in their specific context, applications may focus on strategies including the following:

• Building women’s political leadership capacity
• Mentorship for emerging leaders
• Leverage convening powers for social norms change
• Bolster feminist movement building
• Increasing women’s political leadership

Organizations’ work should encourage inclusive feminist movements through taking an intersectional approach in programmatic activities. For example, organizations should ensure the active participation of women facing multiple threats of discrimination and disadvantages such as women with disabilities, Indigenous women, LGBTQ+ women and other underserved women to encourage inclusive leadership. In addition, organizations may take a specific approach to lead social norms changes focused on the intersectional discrimination experienced by women who are most underserved.

Eligibility

• The lead organization must by a legally registered non-governmental organization with a proven track record in promoting women’s political participation, transforming social norms and leadership, enhancing in advocacy and movement building, or similar criteria.
• The lead organization must have certified annual financial statements for the previous three years.
• The lead organization must have at least 3 years of experience in work related to women’s political participation, leadership, human rights and/or movement building or related themes.
• The proposal must be for an initiative in one country (applications must be single country proposals only).
• The country of implementation must be located in a country eligible to receive Official Development Assistance.
• Applicants must answer the mandatory questions on (a) fraud and wrong-doing and (b) sexual exploitation and abuse and (c) sanctions. (I.e. not be under any sanctions or investigations or been the subject of a finding of wrongdoing following an investigation). These would need to be agreed to in order to sign the Partner Agreement.
• The lead organization must be a member and commitment maker of UN Women’s Generation Equality Action Coalition on Feminist Movements and Leadership.
• The lead organization must accept the terms and conditions of the Partner Agreement.
• The lead organization must ensure that the sub-partners adhere to the terms and conditions of the Partner Agreement.

Priority criteria: Thematic expertise

• Expertise in implementing projects to promote women’s political participation.
• Track record and proven experience in transforming social norms to advance women’s participation; including results achieved in transforming social norms through work with men, boys, the media and community members.
• Experience in implementing projects working with women’s networks or women’s and feminist movements and, ideally, as networks together with other AC6 CSO members. Applications will be prioritized for work to build and support feminist and women’s movements, and especially those promoting young women. Interventions could promote, create or expand networks and movements.
• Proven organizational experience in coalition-building of relevant civil society organizations, including key local stakeholders such as local and national government agencies.
• Champion diverse leaders including women leaders living with disabilities, Indigenous women leaders, LGBTQI+ women leaders, women leaders from the lowest income groups, among others.
• Experience in building the leadership and political capital of women leaders and/or training and capacitating young women on political leadership.

How to Apply

Submission deadline: 11 November 2024

Call for proposals (PDF, 188KB)

For more information please check the Link

Tags Governance Women Empowerment Advocacy Leadership Others