CALL FOR PROPOSALS

BUSINESS AND HUMAN RIGHTS LOW VALUE GRANT FOR CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS

BACKGROUND

 In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs), world’s most authoritative, and normative framework for promoting responsible business practices, and to provide a way forward. The three key pillars of the principles included State duty to protect human rights in business operations, businesses’ responsibility to respect human rights, and both to provide remedies when violations occur.

The UNGPs are now being widely adopted by nations around the world and Mongolia has initiated development of its National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights in 2018 led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The development of the National Action Plan would be an instrumental step toward establishing the necessary legal and policy framework setting a clear guideline for businesses to follow and implement in respect to human rights and appropriate remedy mechanisms.

Since January 2020, UNDP has implemented the ‘Business and Human Rights in Asia: Enabling Sustainable Economic Growth through the Protect, Respect and Remedy Framework’, that is funded by the European Union (EU) Partnership Instrument. The goal of this EU-UNDP joint project is to promote the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles in Asia through multi-country efforts focused on advocacy, policy development, technical advisory support, capacity building, awareness raising, innovation platforms, regional peer learning events, and South-South cooperation. The project was officially launched in Mongolia in April 2021.

In this context, UNDP is going to provide a low value grant to support civil society organizations engaged in human rights protection, recognition and advocacy in Mongolia, in greater context of defending human rights abuses from businesses and industrial operations.  

The objective of this initiative is to promote the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles in Mongolia through civil society actors working with human rights defenders and women’s rights activists seeking innovative approaches towards potential remedies and prevention strategies.

SCOPE OF THE LOW VALUE GRANTS PROGRAMME

The proposals shall take a comprehensive approach aimed at potential remedies and prevention strategies of human rights violations related to business activities. The possible actions include:

• Document a particular human rights issue in a particular industry and further identify innovative measures for redressal approaches;
• Design and implement an innovative solution that increase victims’ access to remedy to seek redressal for the victims (for example mediation, reconciliation);
• Convene discussions and conduct trainings on UN Guiding Principles to business entities, relevant parties as necessary (UNDP Human Rights Due Diligence Facilitation Guide can be used);
• Produce a case study, including quantitative outputs, on the final outcome of the redressal action for the empowerment of victims of business-related human rights abuses and CSOs working with human rights defenders; design and populate a logframe capturing evidence of impact.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Only local, national or community-based non-governmental and not-for-profit civil society organization which works on human rights issues can apply for this grant. Government authorities and for-profit (commercial, private market) actors cannot apply but may participate as cooperation partners in the project or be part of a coalition where a civil society organization is the main applicant.

SELECTION CRITERIA

Under the low value grants programme, two civil society organizations (CSOs) will be selected for a grant of up to 34,000,000 MNT each. Organizations will need to have a strong, relevant and verifiable track record (relevant application documents cited below must be submitted as proof).

The selection criteria will involve the following elements:

1. Experience and capacity of the applicant
2. Relevance to the objective and scope of the grant program
3. Effectiveness
4. Sustainability and Scalability
5. Timeframe, Logframe, and Budget

SELECTION PROCEDURE

Applications will be assessed on a basis of a cumulative analysis that will evaluate both the technical suitability and the financial proposal. The weight of the technical criteria is 70%; the weight of the financial proposal is 30%. Only candidates with a minimum of 70% in the technical evaluation will be considered for the financial evaluation. Incomplete proposals may not be considered. Only the successful candidate will be notified of contract award. UNDP will sign a Low Value Grant Agreement with the winning applicant. Please see evaluation scoring guide at http://www.bizhumanrights.mn.

HOW TO APPLY

Interested organizations must submit the following application documents to the e-mail: registry.mn@undp.org with a subject Business and Human Rights Low Value Grant Application not later than 28 February 2023. Inquiries can be made using same email address. 

Application documents:

• Fully completed project proposal in English and Mongolian languages using the template provided below: Low Value Grant Proposal Template (download from http://www.bizhumanrights.mn)
• Copy of Registration Certificate of the applicant organization
• Composition of Proposed Project Team and Functional Areas of Work
• Sample reports (annual or quarterly activity report, research and other reports that demonstrate relevant experience and capacity of the organization)

Only the successful candidates will be notified.