European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights Information Session &

Dos and Don'ts EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

EIDHR • Deadline: 17 June 2014 • Restricted Call for Proposals: only submission of Concept Notes in the first step • Duration: 18 – 24 months • Overall amount available: € 800.000

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EIDHR • Lot 1: – Promotion of human development, reconciliation, gender equality, volunteerism, inclusiveness and pluralism of society through sports activities. – Total amount available for this Lot: €200.000 – Grant sizes: maximum € 200.000

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EIDHR • Lot 2: – Promotion of political representation and participation of men and women from Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians communities in order to support advocacy and lobbying for the promotion and protection of their rights. – Total amount available for this Lot: €200.000 – Grant sizes: maximum € 200.000

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EIDHR • Lot 3: – Promotion of political representation and participation of women and strengthen their capacities to promote and protect their rights at all levels of society. Redistribution of grants to meet these aims. Sub-granting modalities (i.e. grant sizes, selection procedures, etc.) need to be described in the Concept Note and Full Application. – Total amount available for this Lot: €200.000 – Grant sizes: maximum € 200.000 EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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EIDHR • Lot 4: – Promotion and intensification of the dialogue between the Serb community men and women south and north of Ibër/Ibar river in order to support common actions for human rights and democratic reform. – Total amount available for this Lot: €200.000 – Grant sizes: maximum € 200.000

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Eligibility Criteria Applicants and Co-Applicants • be legal persons and • be non-profit-making and • be specific types of organisations such as: nongovernmental organisations, professional associations, international (inter-governmental) organisations as defined by Article 43 of the Implementing Rules to the EC Financial Regulation and • be established in a Member State of the European Union or in a country covered by Article 19 of IPA regulation and • be organisations registered in Kosovo and EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Eligibility Criteria Applicants and Co-Applicants • have a proven background and a minimum of 3 years of experience within the last 5 years in: – Lot I: promoting inclusiveness, pluralism, inter-community and inter-ethnic relations, education and human development through sports activities; – Lot II: promoting rights of Roma, Ashkali and Egyptians communities; – Lot III: promoting women's rights, capacity building of CSOs, providing small grants; – Lot IV: promoting dialogue within the Serbian community, promoting human rights and democratic reform, and EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Eligibility Criteria Applicants and Co-Applicants • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary

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Eligibility Criteria Applicants The applicant must act with co-applicant(s) and/or subgrant to other organisations as following: • Under Lot 1, Lot 2 and Lot 4, if no sub-granting if foreseen, applicants must act with at least one coapplicant organisation preferably originating from another municipality and/or another community within the borders of Kosovo. Applicants are encouraged to act with grass-root and remote organisations which have less experience in implementing EU funded actions. EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Eligibility Criteria Applicants • Under Lot 3, applicants must sub-grant at least 50% of the grant budget to other organisations, preferably to grass-root and remote organisations which have less experience in implementing EU funded actions, including organisations originating from another municipality and/or another community within the borders of Kosovo. Sub-granting modalities (i.e. grant sizes, selection procedures, etc.) need to be described in the Concept Note and Full Application.

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Eligibility Criteria Co-Applicants Co-applicant(s) must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the applicant himself. In addition to the categories referred to in section 2.1.1, the following are however also eligible: • organisations registered in Kosovo or in a Member State of the European Union or in a country covered by Article 19 of IPA regulation.

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European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights

Information Session

Questions? EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

Dos and Don‘ts The most common mistakes in grant applications

EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

Too broad, too ambitious objectives • Often, the objective of the Call, word for word or slightly modified, is the objective of the proposal. • Many applications target too many objectives at the same time, or define very unrealistic objectives • Focus on concrete objectives - to do what you actually can achieve!

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Too broad, too ambitious objectives Examples: • Promotion of critical thinking and writing for contribution on developing greater cohesion in working on human rights, political pluralism and democratic political participation and representation, in contributing to the peaceful conciliation of group interest, combating discrimination on any ground and developing equal participation of men and women in social economic and political life, thus becoming an effective force for positive change. • Professional Trainings and Capacity Building for Youth, Women and Minorities. • The adoption of democratic political culture and creating new social capital in building active communities and improve the quality of life of citizens. EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Expected Results wrongly defined • Very often, results are presented in the format of activities or outputs. • Results are the achievements, the actual outcomes of the action and its outputs, not the outputs themselves. • The organisation of an event, training, workshop is not a result. The actual impact of this event, training, workshop is a result.

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Expected Results wrongly defined Good example ACTIVITY

OUTPUT

OUTCOME

Seminars for journalists

40 journalists specifically trained on EU issues.

X number of articles on EU issues published in the x …newspaper , x number of articles in the xx newspaper/ weekly magazine,

The articles published contained less/ few/ no errors or misconception EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Expected Results wrongly defined Other examples • Initiating civic/youth activism with no ethnical, religious and racial discrimination • Formed local teams as new models of public participation • The implementation of 4 human rights monitorings, 4 human rights awareness campaigns, 2 human rights informative campaigns conducted by CSOs • A survey on the quality of life situation of PWDs in Kosovo is made

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Relevance of the action to the objective of the call • Often, the action itself is described under this section and no reference is made to the objective of the call and why and how the proposed action relates to it. • Or simply, the relevance is missing all together. • Explain how the action relates concretely to the objectives of this specific call, how your action will contribute to achieving the objectives of this specific Call for Proposals.

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Relevance of the action to the objective of the call Example from the EIDHR call • Objective to provide employment for specific target groups. How is this relevant to promoting Democracy and Human Rights?

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Relevance to the particular needs/constraints of the country (Problem analysis) • Many applicants use this section to give a general overview of all the problems in the country, i.e. poverty, unemployment, illiteracy, poor education system, discrimination, corruption, poor governance, weaknesses in democratic structures, poor economic situation, etc. • Instead, this section should define very concretely the specific environment of your action, the problems your stakeholders/target group face, the problems you intend to address with your action. EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Target groups/final beneficiaries • Sometimes, the target groups are poorly identified, too broad, ignoring important stakeholders, etc., thus compromising the implementation of activities and the achievement of the project's objectives. • The more concretely and precisely you define your target groups, the easier it is to identify their individual specific problems which you want to address through your action.

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Target groups/final beneficiaries Example • Objective: to empower the partnership relations between CSOs and the local authorities in the targeted municipalities; • Target groups: CSOs from Kosovo working with vulnerable groups; Final beneficiaries: vulnerable groups (no involvement of local authorities!)

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Activities not clear and concrete • Sometimes, the activities are not clearly described, too broad, too vague, not giving enough information on how this will be implemented, with whom, with which effect. • Be creative! Think outside the box! • The more concretely and precisely you link your activities to the problem analysis, the target groups and the actual results, the easier it is to demonstrate the impact of your action.

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Activities not clear and concrete Examples •

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Establishment of local teams through interviews based on certain criteria, and the establishment of organizational procedures – Based on which criteria? Strengthening the capacity of members of local teams. – How??? i.e. 'Provide training to members of local teams on project management' Advocacy actions to raise awareness on Convention XXX in 6 municipalities – What kind of advocacy actions? Which target groups? Which municipalities? Why? Public awareness campaign including short radio and TV advertisement and publications – Increase whose awareness on what by which means? Capacity building workshops for all target groups – Build whose capacity on what by which means? EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Budget • Activities are often not reflected in the budget. • Budget lines are wrongly presented. Examples • Proposed activity – produce a brochure on 'XYZ' (budget line – Brochure 'XYZ' design, printing, distribution cost – missing in the budget) • Transportation cost for evaluator presented under budget line 5.Other costs, services, while there is a separate budget line for such costs - 2. Travel.

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Budget • The budget is no place to be 'cool'. Please use formal language. Example 6.1.3. Commuting expenses 4 teachers

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Logical Framework • OVIs are very often poorly defined and not measurable. • Example • Objective: to enhance the inclusiveness and pluralism in civil society in Kosovo through support and capacity building actions to CSOs representing specific disadvantaged groups of society. • OVIs: political participation and exclusion, interethnic relations, democracy and the rule of law.

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Language • Please use professional and neutral language. Examples: • Kosovo actually is living a system which is very hermaphrodite in terms of trying to define it. It is neither capitalism, nor social state. Also, it is not anything in the spectrum between them. • So, addressing the majority regarding RAE community would complement, complete and find the holy grail of this prolonged issue in Kosovo. Now the choice is yours. Please respond as a complete human would do. Thank you. EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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Contacts • Dragana Stolic Social Development Team Cooperation Section European Union Office in Kosovo/EUSR [email protected] 038 5131 325

• For more information:

eeas.europa.eu/delegations/kosovo or www.tacso.org EU Support to Civil Society, Information Session, EU Office in Kosovo, 05 June 2014

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