OREANDA-NEWS. December 03, 2013. The Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) supports civil society and governments to work together to solve critical governance challenges in developing countries.

To achieve this objective, the GPSA provides strategic and sustained support to CSOs’ social accountability initiatives aimed at strengthening transparency and accountability. It builds on the World Bank’s direct and ongoing engagement with public sector actors, as well as a network of Global Partner organizations, to create an enabling environment in which citizen feedback is used to solve fundamental problems in service delivery and to strengthen the performance public institutions. Through a country-tailored approach, GPSA-supported activities are implemented in sectors where the World Bank has a strong involvement and can help governments respond to citizen feedback.

The GPSA works to “close the loop” by supporting citizens to have a more articulated voice, helping governments to listen, and assisting government agencies act upon the feedback they receive.

The GPSA is pleased to announce its 2nd Global Call for Proposals. In Kyrgyz Republic, the GPSA seeks proposals for Social Accountability initiatives and programs from Civil Society Organizations to address one or all of the following:

Monitor the provision of basic services for the poor (energy, education and health sectors, water supply and sanitation, irrigation) following the efforts made by the Government to increase the quality of these services. The interventions should strengthen citizen engagement and user feedback channels on service delivery performance. The information produced will be shared with the Ministries of Energy, Education, Health, Agriculture as well as service providers to use in further improvement of the quality of the services.

Strengthen capacity and the interaction of civil society and self-government bodies at the local level to hold the state/service providers accountable. The proposed activities will help the representative branch of the local governments -- local councils -- to improve their monitoring and controlling functions towards better service delivery by executive offices of local governments and state offices

Institutional strengthening activities and capacity-building through a “learning-by-doing” approach that will result in the CSO’s increased capacity to implement social accountability.

Following the GPSA’s approach, it is expected that the information produced will also be used by other public sector institutions beyond the Executive, including Supreme Audit Institutions, legislative bodies, independent regulatory agencies, and other oversight bodies.
In order to be considered, proposals must demonstrate clearly that:

The project will push the boundaries from pilots to large-scale interventions that may be replicated country-wide;

The proposed intervention is related to ongoing initiatives focusing on similar objectives. It should identify the value added of GPSA support;

It proposes wide-range partnerships with other CSOs that would enable the proposal to achieve a large scale and leverage existing experience; and

The project will generate information that is needed to complement existing processes already supported by relevant public institutions.

GPSA supports proposals that:

Have an estimated duration of 3 to 5 years, in order to enable sustained and strategic funding for Social Accountability;

Propose a detailed budget for total grant amounts in the indicative funding range between USD500,000 and USD 1,000,000. Funding requests below this range will be considered. The requested funds must correlate with the proposal’s duration.

Eligible CSOs:  Legal entities that fall outside the public or for profit sector, such as non-government organizations, not-for-profit media organizations, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, professional organizations, labor unions, workers’ organizations, associations of elected local representatives, foundations and policy development and research institutes.

Applicant CSO must provide proof of legal status in one of GPSA’s eligible (“opted-in”) countries.

Please review the GPSA Application Guidelines for details about how to apply for a grant, eligibility requirements, selection criteria and selection process.

If you are interested in applying please visit www.worldbank.org/gpsa to read the GPSA Application Guidelines and to access the application forms.

For information on the Orientation Session organized by the World Bank offices in Kyrgyz Republic please contact: Natalya Iosipenko, niosipenko@worldbank.org

Orientation Session:

December 5th, 2013, 7 PM (Bishkek time).

World Bank Country Office