ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PROPOSALS FOR THE THEME:

Fighting Poverty and Promoting Economic Empowerment
of Women and Entrepreneurship

Pursuant to the African Union Assembly Decision n°:Assembly/AU/ Dec.277(XVI) and EX.CL/Dec.539(XVI) on the launching of African Women’s Decade (AWD) and the Fund for African Women, the AU is pleased to announce the call for the submission of project proposals under theme n°1 of the African Women Decade in accordance with decision of 5th AU Ministers of Gender and Women’s Affairs of Fighting Poverty and Promoting Economic Empowerment of Women and Entrepreneurship in line with theme no 10 of the AWD namely Mentoring Youth (Men and Women) to be champions of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment. The implementation of the Decade themes is within the context of the integration of NEPAD into the African Union structures and in line with the Assembly Decision n° Assembly/AU/Dec.333 (XVI) to consolidate gains so far made and to achieve coherence. Also, it Reaffirms African Women’s Decade as the overall implementation framework for Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) and that the Fund for the African Women Decade is the vehicle for mobilizing resources in line with Executive Council Decision EX.CL.Dec.539(XVI)(4) and calls on Development Partners support.

By this call, the Commission hereby invites Member States and stakeholders to submit their project proposals on the Theme: Fighting Poverty and Promoting Economic Empowerment of Women and Entrepreneurship focusing on Youth.

The Fund will benefit women and girls through grassroots initiatives, as follows:
a. African Union Members States – 70%
b. African Civil Society Organizations working on Fighting Poverty and Economic Empowerment of Women– 30%
The funds will be for women and girls through local initiatives according to quality criteria of the project, its relevance, its viability and its positive impact on women.

Proposals will be funded for one year with a maximum budget of thirty thousand dollars ($30,000), guided by the ceiling ratios for government and CSOs.

1) The criteria for selecting Projects under Fighting Poverty from grassroots women should:

a. Work with women’s savings groups that pool resources to finance individual small businesses.
b. Develop job opportunities and decent employment for women and girls and enhance women’s access to better labour condition in Agriculture and Industry and crafts;
c. be a leader in the fight to combat the underlying causes of poverty and poor health, especially among women and girls; empower women and girls to take a leadership role in poverty alleviation initiatives
d. Ensure women farmers access to resources they need to increase their production;
e. Help low income women in remote areas to access banking and related services;
f. Ensure that poor women have access to social security, pension schemes and public services;
g. Facilitate women access to employment and access to the resources, rights, goods and services;
h. Support self-help initiatives for the poor women;
i. Promote small, medium and large scale enterprises.
j. Support crafts women
k. Promote land ownership by women
l. Protection of indigenous knowledge and property rights
m. Promote access to education and training of girls/women

2) The criteria of selection of Projects under Promoting Economic Empowerment of Women:

The project should:

a. Help women to access to information and technology to increase their productivity;
b. Ensure access to credit/finance, safe work conditions, living/minimum wages of young girls/women;
c. Ensure adequate representation in decision making positions regarding economic empowerments
d. Support for women’s initiatives that promote the use of renewable energies (especially solar, wind and biomass energy for electricity, etc…).
e. Support for awareness-raising campaigns and initiatives in the area of labour rights and the promotion of organizations of women working in the informal economy.
f. Promote positive action to facilitate access to credit for rural and urban women working in the informal sector;
g. Promote culturally pertinent, gender-aware vocational training programmes with special emphasis on traditional sectors (e.g. agriculture, forestry, tourism, building, handicraft,…);
h. Promote accountability mechanisms in financing institutions and networks that provide services to women;
i. Facilitate partnership with businesses that enhance distribution of goods and services produced by women
j. Help women producers of traditional handicraft to cultivate entrepreneurial skills to build their export competitiveness;
k. Support women to acquire new business and financial management skills;
l. Support women's access to time-saving technologies;
m. Help women have control over their income and economic independence;
n. Provide opportunities for accessing employment from the social and local economy;
o. Reinforce the process of access to credit, land, technology and new assets;
p. Promote women decision making in utilisation of resources at the household level

3) The criteria for the selection of Projects under Women Entrepreneurship:

The project or programme must:

a) Support innovative self-help, self-financing women groups initiatives;
b) Strengthen women’s entrepreneurship and access of girls/women to markets, linking agricultural productivity and food security, and making gender central to private sector human resources management;
c) Facilitate access to financial services and providing capacity building to womenin rural and remotes areas;
d) Support access to microfinance and improved transparency in rural areas;
e) Promote value addition to women-agricultural produce;
f) Build capacity of women on leadership and decision-making;
g) Facilitate women to carry out productive and reproductive roles;
h) Promote women’s ownership, control and participatory governance.
i) Mentoring young entrepreneurs
j) Target projects by women living with HIV and AIDS
k) Target projects by women living with disabilities

Mode of Application

1. Submission of a brief and schematic Concept Identification Note in line with the application characteristics provided (attached), summarised to facilitate technical evaluation and provisional approval or rejection by the Steering Committee. The Concept Identification Note should not exceed one page;

2. A more developed Project Proposal, well formulated in accordance with the provided format (attached) and fulfils key operational, technical and procedural requirements required for the final evaluation of the proposal.

The application should contain a concept identification note summary of one page (attached), as follows:

- Background data (project name, management details, duration, geographic location, background and rationale of the project);

- Description of the project (purpose, goals and objectives of the project, outcomes, activities, indicators, beneficiaries, entities);

- Budget and equipment (available and requirement).

All applications should have a recommendation letter from the National Coordination Committees or the Ministry of Gender and Women’s Affairs. All hard copies should be sent through the respective Member States Embassy’s in Ethiopia with an electronic copy submitted directly to the Commission addressed to the Director Women Gender and Development Directorate, AU Commission’s Fund for African Women by 31 December 2013.

Kindly note that the Commission will only accept proposals ranked by National Coordination Committees composed by Government and Civil Society Organisation separately per theme.

This Announcement will be simultaneously posted at the AUC http://www.africa-union.org and AWD www.africanwomendecade.org websites. The detailed format in which the Concept Identification Notes should be submitted is available on both websites in English, French, Portuguese and Arabic.

Member States and grassroots CBOs with the requisite capacity, network experience of working with women groups, community cooperatives, informal sector and addressing gender inequality are encouraged to apply.

For any additional information or clarification, please contact the WGDD Director, Ms.LithaMusyimiOgana,Tel:+(251)115511092/+(251)115517700;email:MusyimiOganaL@africa-union.org/EmebetH@africa-union.org and/or Mrs Leila Ben Ali, Head of Gender Policy and Development Division, Tel:+(251)115182114; email:leilab@africa-union.org/FiorellaP@africa-union.org, at the AUC Women Gender and Development Directorate.