Issuance date:                        May 19, 2023
Closing date:                         June 30, 2023
Project duration:                   Multi- year
Maximum Award Amount:    Year 1: USD 50,000 / Year 2: USD 50,000

Eligible countries  

Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe

Background

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• About the Regional SRHR Fund

  The Regional Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) Fund is a regional funding mechanism that was set up in 2010 by Hivos Southern Africa and Ford Foundation to strengthen SRHR work in the region. The Fund was established in recognition of the critical need for a strategic regional response to collectively address the myriad of SRHR issues in Southern Africa with particular attention to young people and adolescents as well as to provide an opportunity for donors to coordinate their support to SRHR in the region. The Fund secured additional funding from Sida to continue and expand the breadth and focus from the first phase.

  The Fund will focus on strengthening and empowering youth-led and youth-focused organizations to increasingly defend and promote their SRHR. Engage and influence duty bearers to increasingly design, adopt and implement laws and practices that promote the SRHR of adolescents and young people and finally to strengthen and empower youth researchers to generate evidence on SRHR in the East and Southern Africa region.

  The Fund will in the next four years build stronger, more diverse and better-coordinated youth-led civil society organizations to be able to demand and promote access to inclusive and affirmed SRHR information and services for adolescents and young people.

  The Regional SRHR Fund will expand SRHR work at the regional level by convening and supporting the convening of spaces for collaboration of regional partners aimed at collaborative advocacy, youth-led action research, knowledge exchange of strategies, best practices and lessons learned and movement building to move the ASRHR agenda forward. These processes will leverage on and strengthen cross-country collaboration and regional engagements.

  The Regional SRHR Fund key activities will include: sub-granting, coordination of key actors, convening of meetings, capacity building and gathering and sharing information on advocacy and related SRHR issues to strengthen the efforts of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) working on SRHR in the East and Southern Africa region. Youth participation and youth leadership is viewed as a core component of the program as well as a cross-cutting issue that is linked to building a cadre of youths who can be leaders of CSOs, research, policy and issues-based advocates and legitimate frontrunners for adolescent and youth ASRHR concerns within the broader regional SRHR agenda.

Proposal focus

To strengthen the knowledge management component of the Regional SRHR Fund and realization of meaningful youth involvement, the Fund established a Youth Led Research Initiative (YLRI), including Youth Researchers Academies (YRA) in Kenya, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe, in the first phase of the Fund.

The YRA aims to support capacity strengthening of young people to undertake targeted research/evidence generation on challenges and solutions to improving ASRH service delivery. Such targeted youth-led research can enable young people to promote and advocate for improved access for adolescents and youth SRHR services, as well as inform the provision of SRHR services. Youth-led research as a programmatic approach can also be used to increase adolescent and youth capacity, participation and leadership within the ASRHR field and broader SRHR discourse as well as their relationships in their community.

The Regional SRHR Fund wishes to continue building on the successes from the first phase of the program by issuing a new Call for Proposals for the first cohort of the YRA in this second phase of the Fund.

A grant will be provided to an organization/institution proposing an innovative way to implement a Youth Researchers Academy (YRA). The YRA will focus on strengthening the capacity of young people to undertake targeted research and evidence generation on challenges and solutions to improving ASRH service delivery.

This multi-year grant supports an applicant or institutions/organization to carry out a Youth Researchers Academy (YRA) at a national level to a maximum of USD 100,000 (Year 1: USD 50, 000 and Year 2: USD 50,000). Please note that second year grants will be based on performance for renewal. This grant intends to realize meaningful youth involvement and leadership in ASRHR research, as well as increase adolescent and youth capacity, participation and leadership within the ASRHR field and broader SRHR discourse.

The proposal should present an innovative approach and activities to carry out a Youth Researchers Academy with a focus on the following drivers of change for youth-driven research in ASRHR issues.

Drivers of change include

• Young people have the necessary technical expertise to undertake research: Strengthening capacity and interest for youth-driven research by providing trainings in research methodologies and designing, gathering, documenting, analysing and sharing research/evidence on key challenges that young people and adolescents face in accessing SRHR services.
• Enabling environment for SRHR Information sharing: Strengthening the capacity of young people to disseminate research findings, develop abstracts and publish the gathered evidence in renowned SRHR journals and disseminate the finding at both national and internal levels.
• Enabling advocacy and networking environment for young researcher: Strengthening the capacity of young people to gather evidence that can be used to promote and advocate for improved access for ASRHR services.

Expected results

The expected results should focus on:

• Enhancing capacity for young people to undertake SRHR research
• Improving SRHR evidence dissemination/sharing platforms
• Improving collaboration between youth-led organizations and research Institutions

Efforts should seek to empower young people to play a leading role in all research stages of design, data collection, data analysis, abstract writing and results sharing on issues affecting them. While it is anticipated that the activities in the YRA will be undertaken at the national level, research focus does not necessarily have to be limited to the host country only but can also look at issues across East and Southern Africa.

The proposal should clearly demonstrate anticipated outcomes linked to the objectives of the call for proposal. Proposals should also demonstrate an understanding of youth led research and ASRHR topics.

Applicants should be based or able to work in the focus countries and be able to host a maximum of 15 young people to attend the YRA. Applicants should strictly use the provided proposal and budget templates (follow links below).

Preference will be given to

• Proposals that are well thought out and demonstrate an innovative clear connection to the objectives of the Regional SRHR Fund and the proposal call.
• Proposals that articulate an innovative approach to carrying out a YRA that addresses the capacity gap of youth participation and leadership in ASRHR related research.
• Proposals that have a well outlined publication and dissemination plan (targeted SRHR journals for abstracts submission should be highlighted).
• Proposals that have the potential to realize meaningful youth participation in the ASRHR agenda in East and Southern Africa.
• Proposals that factor in the linkage between SRHR and environmental matters such as climate change will be highly considered.

Additional Information

• Proposals should demonstrate that the organization or institution applying for the grant has demonstrated experience in conducting research.
• Proposals should be submitted with a corresponding summary budget in United States Dollars (USD).
• Proposals should include a budget line for Ethical Clearance and dissemination of results.
• Proposals must adhere to international safety and ethical guidelines.
• Proposal must be received on time and should conform to the information requested as articulated in the proposal guidelines.
• If successful, applicants must be able to ensure strong governance and financial management through the provision of the necessary paperwork/systems to demonstrate this.
• Submission of a proposal does not automatically guarantee funding.

Templates

Click on the links for:

Proposal template
Budget template

Submission of proposals

Please submit your application via email with the subject line Regional SRHR Fund- YRA Proposal to proposals.hubsaf@hivos.org  by 5pm (CAT) on Friday 30 June, 2023.

Should you not hear from us in 2 months after submission closing date please consider your application unsuccessful.

Hivos reserves the right to withdraw this call of application at any time