CALL FOR PROPOSAL
Build Civil Society Organization (CSOs) capacity in order to support youth’s and women’s economic empowerment and start-up entrepreneurship
This project funded by the European Union is implanted by Expertise France with a close cooperation of the Ministry of Planning. The Ministry of Planning is strongly involved in empowering the Civil Society Organizations to disseminate the entrepreneurship culture within their local communities in Libya.
1. ABOUT EXPERTISE FRANCE
Expertise France is the French public international cooperation agency. It designs and implements projects which aim to contribute to the balanced development of partner countries, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals of the 2030 Agenda and the priorities of France’s external action.
Expertise France’s mission is to meet the demand of partner countries seeking to enhance the quality of their public policies in order to address the environmental, social, economic and security challenges they are facing. The agency achieves this goal by implementing projects in those main fields.
2. PRESENTATION OF EXPERTISE FRANCE’S WORK IN LIBYA
Expertise France intervenes in Libya over 4 donor-funded projects since 2014, all related to private sector development and entrepreneurship empowerment:
SLEIDSE, an EU funded project, aimed at supporting economic diversification;
MFI, on UK aid funds, to support the implementation of a micro-finance institution, in close partnership with a Libyan bank;
STREAM aiming at setting up an incubator, accelerator and fab-lab programme in Tripoli;
The Private Sector Development Programme (EU4PSL), an initiative funded by the EU with the objectives of strengthening the capacities of Libyan public institutions, including Ministries of Finance, Economy and the Central Bank. It also encompasses a strategic work with Libyan CSOs to support entrepreneurship in remote places.
The overall portfolio amounts to 19 million euros, over 4 year. Additional developments are expected in the same field, especially a SLEIDSE 2, with a foreseen starting date early 2020.
4. EU4PSL PROJECT
The EU4PSL is an EU funded project, started as of Feb 2019, with an aim of improving Libya’s business environment in order to generate economic growth for private sector and job opportunities for youth and in particular for women. This project seeks to assist the government of Libya and all relevant stakeholders in their efforts to promote the development of an open, dynamic and diversified economy in Libya.
The project will contribute concrete and practical assistance to key Libyan stakeholders, who have capacity to accelerate the transition towards:
economic diversification;
improved competitiveness of Libyan private sector and;
increased role of young and female entrepreneurs in national wealth-creation.
The specific objectives (components) of the programme are:
Specific objective 1 (SO1): Strengthen the capacities of Libyan institutions to design and implement actions conducive to MSME development and improve the attractiveness of Libyan economy for investments.
This first component addresses the needed improvements, in terms of mandate, capacity and competence, of the fundamental institutional players in Libya in terms of the country’s economic strategy: MoE and MoF. An intensive set of activities will be implemented to help move the country out of its centralised rent-based economy and help increasing the role of the private sector. To achieve this, however, the MoE and MoF will be heavily involved as they have a considerable political influence.
The MoE and MoF roles in Libya are extremely broad, their mandate is complex, but their overall political influence is considerable. Consequently, the project focuses on three essential elements which constitute core competences of the MoE and MoF, chosen in relation to their potential and capacity to influence and drive change.
2.Specific Objective 2 (SO2): Support youth’s and women’s economic empowerment and start-up entrepreneurship.
The second component spans the entire “entrepreneurship chain”, from pre-entrepreneurship (increasing capacity of support services) all the way to “getting into active business” (facilitating access to funding for entrepreneurs). There exist several entrepreneurs of highly variable levels of advancement, competence and ambition throughout Libya. This component is designed to be able to simultaneously provide its assistance and expertise on an as-needed basis, rather than on a chronological or staggered basis.
3. Specific Objective 3 (SO3): Improve access to finance for MSMEs and start-ups, including with innovative financial tools and microfinance.
The access to finance component aims at facilitating the access to financial services to Libyan entrepreneurs either by improving the services of the existing financial institutions and/or by supporting the establishment of new bodies. The project will continue supporting the reactivation of the Libyan Credit Guarantee fund which was previously carried by SLEIDSE project along with developing new financial tools that had not previously existed within the Libyan market. In order to achieve the optimum results, the CBL, commercial banks, sovereign funds, etc. will be directly involved.
The overall objective of the action is to improve Libya’s business environment, in order to generate economic growth for private sector and job opportunities for youth and in particular for women.
4 – BUILDING THE CAPACITY OF THE LOCAL CIVIL SOCIETY (COMPONENT 2)
The aim of the component 2 is to organise and make operational a broad network of entrepreneurship-supporting organisations all over the country. This is expected to create a powerful network of actors and instruments that can be operational quickly.
Expertise France and the Ministry of Planning aim is to build and/or enhance capacities and visibility of CSOs dealing with youth and women empowerment.
The purpose of the present call for proposal is to identify Libyan CSO’s with thematic specialisation and capacity to support women and youth’s economic empowerment.
The component 2 of this project is divide in 2 outputs:
4.1 Output 1” Empowering women by mentoring”
Expertise France will organise a training to enhance the selected CSOs capacities.
The training will divide in 10 thematic workshops:
- Management and Human Ressources workshop
- Program development workshop
- Communication and Marketing workshop
- Partnerships and Fundraising workshop
- Reporting workshop
- Business modelling workshop
- Access to finance workshop
- Mentoring and coaching workshop
- Study tour
- Pitching skills workshop
- Afterward those CSOs will be in charge, for 5 months, to train and help concretely 2 females’ entrepreneurs to develop their business.
The mission will be, among others, to help women entrepreneurs to:
- formalize their business plan
- carry out the registration process
- teach them how to pitch their idea in front of potential investors
- develop their marketing and communication strategies
- formalize their accounting system
By being supported by CSOs, women-entrepreneurs will be able to rely on practical advice and collective help from their network. That will help them to successfully develop their business.
- The action will also provide financial support to be given to third parties.
Seed funds will be given through the selected CSOs to Libyan female entrepreneurs.
The objective is to help women to develop their business, make investments, increase their productivity and profitability. At the end the business must be developed, sustainable and make profit.
The different types of activities eligible for financial support are handcrafted activities, trading activities, food and catering activities, agriculture activities, IT activities.
The third parties will be co-selected by Expertise France and the selected CSO based on their business plan/ideas and on their capacities to develop it.
The criteria for determining the exact amount of financial support for each third entity will be the business plan proposed by the entrepreneur.
The maximum amount of financial support that can be paid must not exceed € 5 000 per third party.
4.2 Output 2 “Nation-wide Business contests”
In cooperation with Libyan universities, each CSO will implement and organize an entrepreneurship bootcamp (6 days of intensive training), to train 24 university students on business plans writing.
Then based on their business plan, entrepreneurs with best ideas will be trained on pitching skills to patriciate in a nation-wide business contest.
Both output 1 and output 2 will be annual activities for the next 3 years.
5.FUNDS AVAILABLE FOR THE ACTION
Given the crisis in Libya, the financing of the action in full is authorized.
5.1 For CSOs
The maximum amount to implement the activities will be € 60, 000 (split in 3, €20,000 for the first year and € 20 000 every year for 2 years) this budget should cover:
- mentoring and coaching 2 females’ entrepreneurs to create and develop their business for 5 months;
- organizing a 6 days Bootcamp (6 days of intensive training) in Libya for 20-22 young potential entrepreneurs;
- leading and organizing 6 workshops (1 every 2 months) the spread the entrepreneurship culture within the local community.
5.2 Support to third parties – female entrepreneurs (through the CSOs)
12 different women entrepreneurs who were able to initially start their business, will receive each year (over 3 years) € 5 000.
6. ELIGIBILITY
The selection process is subject to strict eligibility criteria
- Applicant eligibility
In order to be eligible for a grant, the applicant must:
- Be a Non-Governmental Organization
- Be a non-profit making entity
- Be registered in Libya
- Be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the proposal of the action, not acting as an intermediary
- Demonstrate the ability to manage activities related to the purpose of the project
If the applicant does not meet these eligibility criteria, the application will not be considered.
Please note that:
- a previous experience with international donors is an asset.
- a previous experience in supporting young and/or female entrepreneurs throughout the country is an asset.
- Actions eligibility
Duration
The duration of the action may not be less than 3 years. The action should start as soon as the contract with Expertise France is signed to respect the project schedule.
Themes
Proposed actions should be in line with the priorities identified in this call for proposals (please refer to paragraph4)
Geographical coverage
This project is designed to take place in the Libyan context so we will only select Libyan CSOs registered in Libya and with activities based in Libya. Expertise France team will take into consideration covering all 3 main regions in Libya (East, West, South). Once selected the CSO must implemented the action in the defined region.
Types of action
Proposed actions should fall within the areas identified in the present call for proposal (cf. paragraph 4). Actions must respond to identified needs and project objectives. They must be achievable given the time allocated, the geographical, economic and political context.
The following types of action are ineligible:
- actions concerned only or mainly with individual sponsorships for participation in workshops, seminars, conferences and congresses;
- actions concerned only or mainly with individual scholarships for studies or training courses;
- actions including aspects of religious and political proselytism.
Costs eligibility
Eligible cost are costs related to the implementation of the action. The eligible costs are mentioned in the budget template.
The grant allocated by Expertise France will cover the actual costs incurred by the beneficiary (supporting documents, receipts will be asked).
Ineligible costs:
– debts and the burden of debt (interest);
– provisions for potential future losses or debts;
– the costs declared by the beneficiary and financed by another action or program
– purchases of land or buildings,
– credits to third parties;
– the cost of the salaries of the staff of the national administration.
7. VISIBILITY
Applicants must take all necessary steps to publicize the fact that the European Union has financed the action and must comply with the objectives and priorities and ensure the visibility of EU funding.
Applicants must also take all necessary measures to ensure the visibility of Expertise France and the EU4PSL project.
8.ONLINE APPLICATION PROCEDURE
Number of applications and grants per applicant
The applicant:
- cannot submit more than one application under this call for proposals.
- cannot be awarded more than one grant under this call for proposals.
Incomplete applications will not be considered.
8.1 Questionnaire
In order to summit your application please answer the questions bellow (in English or Arabic) and upload the required documents. Your answers must be precise and as detail as possible.
8.2 “Skills and added value description”
In a separate document you will have to explain in minimum 4 pages and maximum 8 pages:
- How will you be able to support, mentor and coach female entrepreneurs every year for 5 months?
- How will you organize a 1-week intensive training with the local universities for their students?
- How will you organize the workshops?
- How will your CSO become a local business hub for local entrepreneurs?
- How will you disseminate the entrepreneurship culture within your community?
- How the sustainability of the action is ensured?
- How the action will be made sustainable once it has been completed: follow-up actions, internal strategies, ownership, communication plans
- What Is you added value in the implementation of this project?
It is very important that this document contains all the relevant information about the action.
Please upload this document (a PDF version) at the end of the application process.
8.3 Budget
Applicants will provide the amount of the requested contribution (60 000 euros max.) in the form of a detailed budget. Please use the given template (link), fill it out and upload it.
Your budget proposal must be realistic, detailed and justified.
Expertise France reserves the right to seek clarification in case on unclear budget. The award of a grant is subject to the condition that the checks preceding the signature of the grant contract do not reveal problems requiring budget changes (i.e arithmetical errors, inaccuracies, unrealistic costs and/or non-eligible costs).
This verification procedure may give rise to requests for clarification and may lead Expertise France to impose minor amendments.
9. REPORTING AND PAYMENT TERMS
- Reporting
Every 3 months, the successful applicant will be required to provide a narrative and financial report.
The selected CSO will have to provide Expertise France with all required information on the implementation of the action. The report shall describe the implementation of the action according to the activities envisaged, difficulties encountered, and measures taken to overcome problems, eventual changes introduced, as well as the degree of achievement of its results (impact, outcomes or outputs). The report shall be laid out in such a way as to allow monitoring of the objectives.
A financial report with all original documents related to eligible expenses (invoices, contracts, payroll …) will be sent every 3 months to the local office of Expertise France in Tunis, in order to be integrated into the project accounting and financial reports submitted to the donor.
- Payment terms
The initial pre-financing payment of € 20 000 will be made after the selected CSO successfully attend the 10 workshops.
The second and third instalment will be given on February 2021 and February 2022.
10.EVALUATION CRITERIA TO GRANT APPLICATIONS
CSOs will be selected through an evaluation conducted by Expertise France that will consider multiple criteria including experience, qualifications, organizational and objectives as well as an understanding of their own growth potential. Expertise France will also look for CSOs who will take full advantage of this opportunity, financially but more importantly the mentorship and coaching, to increase the potential success within the local communities.