Call for advocacy project proposals for the adoption of national action plans on LGBTI people’s rights

The specific goal of this call

The specific goal of this call is to support the development and adoption of LGBTI equality action plans by national public authorities. ILGA-Europe supports the model of policy action plans based on concrete policy measures with clear deliverables as a useful method to advance equality in practice. Their conception and implementation is also a welcome opportunity to boost NGOs’ engagement with policy makers and administrations.

ILGA-Europe will allocate 5 to 7 grants (for a total of 50.000 €) to national member organisations working on the development of public national LGBTI equality action plans. ILGA-Europe support this approach which has proven to be useful in many countries where it has already been implemented (such as Belgium, France, The Netherlands, Norway, the UK), as well as at EU level on the discrimination grounds on which it has been put in practice (gender, Roma, disability etc.).

The grantees will be supported in implementation of advocacy actions and capacity building plans aiming at strengthening a mainstreaming approach to LGBTI equality within public authorities.

The selection of the grantees will be made by the end of 2013, and the projects will need to be implemented by the end of 2014.

Eligibility criteria

Project focus

• The project needs to define a clear advocacy plan (reference to advocacy manual) on the adoption of a national level LGBTI equality governmental action plan. In some cases (federal states with high level of powers granted to the regions), applicants working at regional level could also submit a proposal provided they demonstrate the impact of their goals, including European value added.
• In countries where a governmental action plan already exists, project proposals could be accepted upon the condition that they bring a demonstrated additional value. This could for instance be the case if the project aimed at creating effective monitoring mechanisms on the implementation of the plan, where such mechanisms are currently lacking.
• The projects need to include a European value added, either by building on other European experiences or by including in the national plan’s measures a national commitment to the adoption of a European level roadmap.

Project planning

• Applications will need to include a clear activity plan based on a coherent advocacy model, and describe the interactions with the different relevant public authorities.
• The above-mentioned advocacy models will need to be based on a plurality of actions aiming at reinforcing the knowledge, expertise and capacities of decision-makers in relation to LGBTI equality. Examples of such actions include advocacy meetings and events, the elaboration of shadow action plans with other civil society or political partners, the contribution to sectorial action plans with specific administrative departments, etc.
• Applications can also include plans for capacity building actions organised for the benefit of public authorities or of activists, indicating clearly how these actions would contribute to the adoption and/or implementation of a national governmental action plan.
• Application forms shall include a description of the planned activities and of the chosen reporting techniques. Your proposals will be evaluated taking into account the capacity of your organisation to implement the project. Information on the grantee’s plans to sustain their advocacy objective in the long term in case it seems unrealistic to achieve the adoption of a public action plan by the end of 2014.

Additional conditions

• The budget should be annexed. Overall budget proposals should be comprised between 7.000 and 10.000. A maximum of 20% of the budget can go to overhead expenses (administrative and office costs). All other costs are eligible if justified by the needs of the project.
• Proposals will be accepted from officially registered with local authorities LGBT organisations or unregistered initiative groups (in countries, where there are no registered LGBTI NGOs).
• Grantees commit to make themselves available to participate to two events ILGA-Europe will organise in 2014 in the frame of this project for the purpose of knowledge sharing on national advocacy strategies and contribution to European advocacy objectives of the LGBTI rights movement. The exact dates of these events will be announced in January 2014.

The deadline for the applications’ submission is 27 November 2013, 18.00 CET. Decisions on grants awarded will be communicated late December.

You can submit your application or ask any questions about the Fund to ILGA-Europe’s Programmes and Policy Officer Boris Balanetkii-Schlütter: boris@ilga-europe.org.

Find the application form here

ILGA-Europe looks forward to your applications and wishes you luck!