Call for applications: selection of 15 civil society organisations to implement the activities of the grant project “Resilient CSOs + Responsible Budgeting = Accelerated Implementation of the Association Agreement”

The overall objective of the project is to increase and strengthen the capacities of civil society organisations to support the implementation of the conditionalities related to the Republic of Moldova's EU accession process and of the Association Agreement agenda, at national and local level.

The overall objective of this task

The essence of the first specific objective of the project is to build and strengthen the capacities of community CSOs to monitor the budget, and to encourage their involvement in advocacy activities on aligning budgets and policies with the priorities of the Europeanisation agenda and the AA, thus contributing to accelerating the reform process. To this end, through a competitive process, 15 CSOs will be selected from the 5 development regions: North, Centre, South, ATU Gagauzia and Transnistria (3 CSOs per region).

Each selected CSO will receive financial support in the form of a grant of up to EUR 20,000, allocated over the entire duration of the project to ensure the funding of the activities envisaged in the project. The funding will be intended to cover salary costs, relevant administrative costs and those related to bank transactions.

The grant beneficiaries will ensure the achievement of five key objectives:

• monitoring local and state budgets, including financial resources received from development partners, with particular emphasis on local and regional infrastructure projects, social services, public services and other relevant projects related to the AA and Europeanisation agenda;
• monitoring, together with the central project team, state budget expenditure on projects and policies related to the Europeanisation agenda, especially those related to: the justice sector and anti-corruption reform; employment policies; social services; energy efficiency and renewable energy; public services; and human rights, including gender equality;
• participating, together with the central project team, in visibility and advocacy activities at local level;  
• becoming local resource centres, capable of mobilising other CSOs and civic activists at local level to engage in participatory budgeting and budget process monitoring activities;
• engaging in the activities of the CSO platforms (mentioned above) by providing input in the process of drafting position papers that reflect the local/regional perspective, as well as participating in the platforms' advocacy events and activities.

Application procedure 

Interested CSOs are invited to submit an application file, in accordance with the terms of reference attached below; it will include the following documents:

• a short motivation letter, indicating the objectives and results to be achieved through the use of the grant. The letter will also indicate in which region of the country the organisation prefers to work (North, Centre, South, Transnistria, Gagauzia as defined in the Law on Regional Development No. 438 / 2006);
• a short description of the organisation (1-2 pages);
• the proposed budget for carrying out the project activities;
• the list of relevant projects implemented previously (no limit); 
• the organisation's registration certificate (an extract from the State Register of Legal Entities issued at least 12 months before the application submission date will be requested upon signing the contract);
• the organisation's activity report for the most recent year; 
• the organisation's Statute;
• financial statements for the last 3 years (balance sheet, profit and loss statement, etc.);
• the most recent audit report on the organisation's financial statements (if available).

The application must be submitted in Romanian. The application file must be sent by 1 March 2023, 18:00, to the email address procurari@expert-grup.org

Additional information may be requested by sending an email to: ecaterina@expert-grup.org (Ecaterina Rusu, project manager).

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The project is implemented by the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup”, as lead partner, in a consortium with IPRE, PA Institutum Virtutes Civilis (IVC) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Moldova (Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Moldova), funded by the European Union (European Union in the Republic of Moldova) and co-funded by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.