Call for Proposal: Support and Empower Women and Girls through the Provision of Holistic Services

Background:

Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere “CARE” is a leading relief and development non-governmental organization fighting global poverty.

CARE established its presence in Lebanon in 2006 and has been responding to the Syrian Crisis since late 2012. Among CARE’s key imperatives is putting people it serves first through implementing cutting edge programming in areas it operates. CARE currently carries out activities in Beirut, Mount Lebanon, Akkar, North Lebanon, South Lebanon, and the Beqaa Valley. CARE implements both emergency and development projects contributing to livelihood, food security, protection, gender, shelter, and water, sanitation, and hygiene. It targets the most vulnerable people and populations, both host communities and refugees. Over the course of 7 years, it has supported more than half a million beneficiaries.

In Lebanon, CARE’s program strategy for the upcoming years will focus on strengthening and expanding its emergency response and capacity to provide basic assistance services while pursuing development projects in areas of food security and livelihood support, gender, and protection. CARE intends to maintain its presence in all areas of Lebanon.

Overview of the Project:

Following the multi layered crises that Lebanon has been facing since 2019, starting with Covid 19 emergency followed by Beirut port explosion in 2020 and lastly the economic crises and drastic collapse of the Lebanese currency for 4 years and till today. The World Bank ranked the economic crisis in Lebanon as one of the top ten most severe episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century (World Bank, 2021). Based on a recent Multi sectoral needs assessment conducted by OCHA in April 2022, results showed that a staggering 2.2 million people (or 57 per cent of all Lebanese population) need some form of humanitarian support, including 631,000 women and 594,000 men, 339,000 girls and 321,000 boys, and 329,000 older people, including an estimated 150,000 people with disabilities (MSNA,2021).

Due to the overall deteriorating situation in the country combined with the aftermath of the economic crises, Protection risks have increased and reached a threatening limit. In which women and girls have been affected greatly. Vulnerable groups and minorities such as Women head of households, refugees, PWDs, elderly, LGBTQI+, and domestic workers... are in dire need of assistance. The compounded crises have led to increase in GBV rate in which according to the GBV IMS data of Q3 2022, female survivors continue to constitute most survivors seeking services given the disproportionate exposure of women and girls to GBV.

Funding to WROs/ WLOs has always been low, especially when an organization or initiative identifies itself as “feminist”. They are excluded from decision-making regarding the amounts of funds provided, and more often, provided funds are restricted, giving WROs and WLOs no flexibility to implement activities that cater for the needs of women and girls. WROs/WLOs experience a double disadvantage when it comes to accessing funding, both as national or sub-national organisations competing with international and national actors for funds, and additionally as organisations being run by or focusing on women within wider patriarchal systems.[1] In Lebanon, feminist, WROs, and WLOs struggle to secure funding because of the stigma that feminist is subjected to, in addition to the backlash they face when advocating to women’s rights.

“Support and Empower Women and Girls through the Provision of Holistic Services” is a project funded by the MOFA Luxembourg and it aims to set up a mechanism for financing, for capacity building and for networking feminist organizations in Lebanon. The project is targeting CSOs in Lebanon, with a concentration of funding for feminist organizations. The fund intends to focus on six major subjects of promotion of women's rights, namely (i) the SRHR (which will concentrate the majority of funding, since it is a focus of France policy within the framework of the Generation Equality Forum), (ii) GBV, (iii) women's economic empowerment, (iv) women’s access to rights, (v) gender equality, and (vi) advocacy on women’s issues.

In this call, CARE is reaching out to WLOs, WROs, and Feminist local CSOs who have the capacity to implement activities in the capital Beirut, Mount Lebanon, and the North. The proposed project falls under the category of emergency relief projects & resilience, as it aims to address the urgent needs of vulnerable populations in Lebanon who are facing multiple crises in addition to supporting them in improving their livelihood. CARE will select local organizations that meet the project’s criteria and objectives, and organizations that have a deep understanding of the local context, culture and needs of the communities they serve. The call for sub-granting and selection will be based on whether the proposed activities by the CSO would answer the above-mentioned themes. After the shortlisting process, CARE will be sub granting one organization in each of the categories below:
-           Nutrition: procurement of food, distribution of cash or food vouchers - Women empowerment and access to rights.

-           Protection: Protection of particularly vulnerable groups - GBV and Protection.

-           Health: medical services, procurement of medical supplies etc. -SRHR

Eligibility Criteria:

• To be an officially registered grassroot women-led/women’s rights/feminist
• Clear governance and decision-making structure
• The organization/group is led mainly by women: the majority or all of the leadership is made up of women.
• Clear goals and vision towards social change, inclusive of women’s rights and gender equality
• Ability to implement activities that are relevant to achieve results, consistency, and feasibility of their actions.
• Capacity to reach out and engage local community.