Проект ЄС-ПРООН «Рада за Європу» оголошує конкурс малих грантів за такими напрямками: підтримка розвитку Верховної Ради як відкритого парламенту;посилення двостороннього зв'язку між Верховною Радою та громадянам. Дедлайн - 28 липня 2017 р. (далі - англ.)

Call for Proposals  Support to implementation of the Action Plan for the Declaration of Parliamentary Openness, to enhance transparency and openness of the Verkhovna Rada

1. INTRODUCTION

About EU-VRU-UNDP Rada for Europe Project

The “Rada for Europe” project has been developed to support implementation of the Road Map for Reform adopted by the Verkhovna Rada in March 2016, based on the 52 recommendations of the joint European Parliament – Verkhovna Rada Needs Assessment Mission carried out between August 2015 - February 2016. The Rada for Europe project was launched in June 2016 and runs until May 31, 2018. The project is funded by the European Union and implemented by UNDP.

The tasks of the project are categorized by the following areas of activity:

-          To make the legislative activities of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine more effective;

-          To build up the capacities of staff of the VRU Secretariat and committees to enable them to provide effective and impartial services to the Parliament and MPs;

-          To ensure a higher level of transparency of the VRU, more consistent communications, and public dialogue.

To implement the third component of the Project within the Open Parliament Initiative, supported by the United Nations Development Program in Ukraine and aimed at implementing the Parliamentary Openness Action Plan, small grants are available to support civil society organizations in targeted activities fostering citizen engagement and institutional transparency at the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

This call for proposals for small grants contains the following lots:

-           LOT 1: for proposals for small grants to support development of the Verkhovna Rada as an Open Parliament, in line with Ukraine’s adherence to the global Open Government Partnership

-           LOT 2: for proposals for small grants to enhance two-way communication between the

Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and the Ukrainian citizens.

The activities for which proposals are sought in relation to these lots are described in detail below.

LOT 1: for proposals for small grants to support development of the Verkhovna Rada as an Open Parliament, in line with Ukraine’s adherence to the global Open Government Partnership

1.1  OPEN DATA PORTAL ENHANCEMENT

Current situation

In April 2016, the civil network OPORA, in cooperation with the Parliament of Ukraine and the State Agency for E-Government, and with the support of UNDP Ukraine, developed and launched the Open Data Portal of the Verkhovna Rada. Today, the Open Data Portal contains 406 sets of public data about the Ukrainian Parliament in a format that is easy to process and compatible with various analytical computer programs. The Portal includes information about the costs of operating the Parliament and MPs; information about who works in the Verkhovna Rada and where; information about MPs; draft laws being considered in the Parliament; the progression of plenary sessions; and a legislation database. However, there are several obstacles to the full-fledged and effective functioning of the Portal:

-          Limited awareness of the availability and importance of open data and analytical tools as part of the policy process both within the Parliament, and among external interlocutors and public intermediaries including media and civil society;

-          Issues in data quality obtained from the relevant agencies of the VRU Secretariat, resulting inter alia in the presence of bugs in the operation of the Portal itself;

-          Lack of strategic approach in maintaining and developing the Open Data Portal.

The goal of the grant activity and the anticipated results

To implement Paragraph 4.4 of the Parliamentary Openness Action Plan “Publication of data sets in the open data format in the parliamentary web resources”, the following results are expected

-          All data sets are published in the open data format specified in the Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine “On approval of the Regulation on data sets to be published in the form of open data” No. 835 of October 21, 2015;

-          The number of data sets published on the Open Data Portal and those not provided for by the Resolution No. 835 has been increased to provide access to public information thus fostering public awareness and interest in such data;

-          Publication of the financial information of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine:

A) financial report for the previous year;

B) detailed cost sheet of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine for the current/next year;

C) “passports” of budget programs;

D) information about the financial assistance of the MPs (monthly compensation, cost of travel within Ukraine payable to the MPs during their mandates; salary fund for the assistant advisors of the MPs;  compensation for housing or hotel room rent; provision of transportation within the city of Kyiv;  intra-city and long-distance telephone conversations; business trips of assistant advisors of MPs to electoral districts; reimbursement of expenses for the maintenance of reception offices in the electoral districts; reimbursement of expenses for the rent of premises to hold meetings with the voters in the electoral districts; reimbursement of expenses related to the performance of MP’s duties.);

-          The Open Data Portal is easy to use; the bugs identified on the basis of user feedback have been fixed;

-          The “open data by default” principle, incorporating open data requirements, has been implemented in the process of design and development of new information systems in the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine;

-          Workshops and communication campaigns aimed at raising awareness of the goal and scope of open data use have been conducted. Analytical material on the basis of information taken from the open data portal has been written and published (at least 2).

-          The number of Open Data Portal users is increased.

Technical requirements:

• To ensure that publication of parliamentary open data is executed automatically in structured (machine-readable) formats (JSON / XML …)

•          To develop a system for automatic/automated collection, storage, and conversion of parliamentary data into structured formats, such as JSON and XML, for free reuse by the expert community.

•          To develop an application programming interface (API) that would allow third parties to perform automatic search and download information in structured formats (JSON / XML, etc.).

•          To develop a system of advanced visualization and review of open data sets on the Open Data Portal.To ensure that web design of the Open Data Portal is adapted to the design of the web services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (“Portal for a Public Discussion of Draft Laws of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”, etc.);

•             To ensure the development of server functionality in line with the software requirements for the web services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (“Portal for a Public Discussion of Draft Laws of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”, etc.);

To ensure full compliance with the software requirements for the solution:

Basic version: HTTP-server - Internet Information Services (IIS) 8+, database server - PostgreSql 9.5+ (integration with Oracle Database 12c). Development is performed using Visual Studio 2015/2017 and the distributed version control and collaboration system Git, ASP.NET MVC v. 5.2.3+ Framework or ASP.NET Core v. 1.1+, the C# programming language (.Net Framework 4.6 + / .NET Core v. 1.1+), the database access framework ADO.NET Entity Framework 6.1.3 + / Entity Framework Core (Code First approach), jQuery 2.1.4 +, jQuery UI 1.11.4+.

Alternative version: HTTP server – Apache, the application server coded on perl, the database server – Oracle 12c / PostgreSql 9.4+, the client side – HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, jQuery UI.

•           To guarantee that adaptive layout of interface design is developed: the system must have fluid layout and must be adapted to different types of screens, modes, and resolutions (workstation, tablet, smartphone; landscape / portrait).

•           Flexibility and adaptability of interfaces must be ensured by html5 methods and JavaScript libraries: CSS Flexible Box Layout Module; CSS3 Media Queries; JavaScript library Bootstrap.

The implemented system shall meet the requirements of software compatibility and integration with the cutting-edge services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

1.2  VISUALISATION OF THE LEGISLATIVE PROCESS

Current situation

In terms of visualisation of the legislative process, the Parliament website provides information on registered draft laws (bills), including the number and the date of registration thereof, the session of registration, inclusion in the agenda, subjects with the right of legislative initiative, initiators of the bill, main and other committees that are considering the draft legislation. Citizens can also find the text of a bill, supporting documents (information memorandum, comparative table) and documents related to the finalisation of the bill (opinions of the main committee and expert departments). Information on adoption and history of consideration of a bill is also provided, but often this information may be missing or inaccurate. There is also information on which committees, along with the main one, have finalised the bill, when it was submitted for their consideration, and when it was returned with an opinion.

However, the texts of opinions are not presented in the “draft bill datasheet” section, although the committee websites do publish such opinions. In addition, there is no consolidated information on the number of bills pending in a certain committee with the indicated dates and subject of the legislative initiative with the possibility of filtering by the status of the bill, the registration date, the subject of the legislative initiative or additional committees taking part in the review of the bill. This makes it impossible to see the overall picture of the law-making process. A clearer picture would enable deputies and citizens to more effectively influence the processing of bills “stuck” in the committees for years, and identify proposals to optimize the legislative process based on a coherent system of legislative development, and discussion through ‘white papers’, and to limit the adoption of random amendments that can impact the legislative framework in an incoherent manner.

The goal of the grant and the anticipated results

To implement Paragraph 1.6 of the Parliamentary Openness Action Plan “Information about draft laws”, the following actions with the following results are expected:

-          Visualization of the legislative process as a timeline from the moment of registration of the bill up to its signing by the President. The ability to track the bill at all the stages and to read the text of the bill and the supporting documents without downloading.

-          The visualization module contains full information about all the bills and adopted laws and allows to compare the number of bills pending in a certain committee in an accessible interactive form with the following filters: the status of the bill, the registration date, the convocation when registered, the subject of legislative initiative, additional committees working on the bill, alternative bills, information on public or committee hearings of the bill, information about the comments available on the website dedicated to the online discussion of bills etc.

-          The user is provided with extensive search possibilities concerning the draft laws in line with the attributes (the list of attributes is specified on the stage of implementation):

-          Workshops and communication campaigns have been conducted among the MPs, journalists, and the public to promote the use of the module and the possibilities of using the collected information

Technical requirements:

• To ensure that web design of the Open Data Portal is adapted to the design of the web services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (“Portal for a Public Discussion of Draft Laws of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”, etc.);

• To ensure the development of functionality in line with the software requirements for the web services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (“Portal for a Public Discussion of Draft Laws of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”, etc.);

• To ensure full integration of the security sub-system with the existing systems of the VRU.

• To ensure full compliance with the software requirements for the solution:

• HTTP-server - Internet Information Services (IIS) 8+, database server - PostgreSql 9.5+ (integration with Oracle Database 12c). Development is performed using Visual Studio 2015/2017 and the distributed version control and collaboration system Git, ASP.NET MVC v. 5.2.3+ Framework or ASP.NET Core v. 1.1+, the C# programming language (.Net Framework 4.6 + / .NET Core v. 1.1+), the database access framework ADO.NET Entity Framework 6.1.3 + / Entity Framework Core (Code First approach), jQuery 2.1.4 +, jQuery UI1.11.4+.
• To guarantee that adaptive layout of interface design is developed: the system must have fluid layout and must be adapted to different types of screens, modes, and resolutions (workstation, tablet, smartphone; landscape / portrait).

• Flexibility and adaptability of interfaces must be ensured by html5 methods and JavaScript libraries: CSS Flexible Box Layout Module; CSS3 Media Queries; JavaScript libraryBootstrap.
• The implemented system shall meet the requirements of software compatibility and integration with the cutting-edge services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

1.3   TRANSPARENCY OF THE VRU COMMITTEES’ WORK

Order No. 699 of the Speaker of the Ukrainian Parliament “On Web Resources of the Ukrainian Parliament” dated May 19, 2015 (hereinafter referred to as the Order) stipulates that a comprehensive list of data about the activities of the Ukrainian Parliament Committees shall be public. Thus, in accordance with Clause 15 of the Order, the basic information resources of the website of a Ukrainian Parliamentary Committee shall contain:

-          information about the composition and structure of a committee, the secretariat of the committee;

-          information on committees’ activities (committee sessions, hearings, round tables and other events within a committee);

-          draft schedule of committee sessions, drawn up by the committee chairperson;

-          schedule of committee sessions for two weeks, approved at a committee session;

-          changes to the schedule of the committee sessions (to be posted at least four days before the session – in between plenary sessions of the Verkhovna Rada and at least 24 hours before the session – during a plenary period);

-          minutes, transcript, and audio recording of a committee session (to be posted within five working days after the session was held and in case of draft codes and bills that contain more than 100 articles and paragraphs – no later than two days before consideration of the corresponding bill at a plenary session of the Verkhovna Rada);

-          acts adopted by a committee (to be posted within three working days);

-          minutes and transcripts of committee’s hearings (to be normally posted within 10 days, but no later than 20 days from the hearing date);

-          details about law-making activity: bills that are under consideration of the committee and have been submitted for discussion, status of bills;

-          opinions, resolutions, clarifications, committees’ plans and reports;

-          information on interaction and contact with committees;

-          photo and audio materials illustrating committees’ work.

To date, not all committees fully comply with this Order. According to research of the Civil Network OPORA, published on June 12, 2017, 16 parliamentary committees publish more than 50% of the information that should be available in their web resources according to the Order; three committees publish approximately 50% of required data; while eight committees publish less than 50% of the required information. (http://bit.ly/2sxd4DZ).

In addition, committees’ websites do not provide sufficient information about the procedure for registration of civil society representatives to participate in public committee meetings or online broadcasts for those who want to follow the discussion of important bills through the Internet. The Law of Ukraine “On Parliamentary Committees”, article 48, envisages the possibility to invite citizens or representatives of CSOs to participate in a committee meeting. In practice, some parliamentary committees involve public representatives to participate in their work. However, this mechanism has not been institutionalized and is carried out inconsistently.  

The goal of the grant and the anticipated results

To implement Paragraph 1.4 of the Parliamentary Openness Action Plan “Access to the information about the activities of the VRU committees” and Paragraph 2.2 “Public participation in the committee meetings, committee hearings, and parliamentary hearings”, the following actions with the following results are expected:

-          More committees follow Order 699 through advocacy and monitoring of committees’ meetings (the results of the analysis according to the established criteria is available with monthly updates);

-          Committee meetings are broadcast online, with the video recordings being uploaded to the committees’ websites or other open resources (at least 7 committees);

-          Procedure for access to citizens to participate in committees’ meetings is developed. The committees’ websites provide an electronic registration form for citizens to request to participate in public committee meetings; it is possible to choose the anticipated date and the time of a relevant meeting on a calendar;

-          Public communication campaigns have been conducted to raise awareness of the possibility of participating in the committee meetings.

1.4  MP REPORTING TO CITIZENS

Current situation

According to the Law of Ukraine “On the Status of a Member of Parliament” (para. 12, art. 24), a member of parliament is obliged to “inform the voters about their activities as an MP through media and at meetings with voters regularly, at least twice a year.” However, due to the lack of a unified mechanism and format of such reporting, it is impossible to analyze the MPs’ activities according to the same criteria or to assess the effectiveness of their activities in a fair manner, which deprives voters of equal access to information about each MP. Public associations and programs such as VoxUkraine, the CHESNO movement, the Civic Network OPORA or the RADA Program regularly conduct campaigns to gather information about the MPs’ activities in the form of reports. According to research conducted by the civic movement CHESNO in February 2017, 15% of MPs report at least in one of the forms proposed by the public. After consultations with MPs, the following conclusions have been made:

-          MPs are ready to report, but they would benefit from support and a sample reporting framework

-          The multiple reporting requests of different civil society organizations provides an excessive burden on MPs being requested to provide duplicate information in different formats.

In the follow-up to the research, an ad hoc working group was set up with the participation of concerned public figures, MPs, and representatives of the VRU Secretariat and a unified form of MPs reporting has been designed. This form was presented by MP Ostap Yednak at a press briefing at the Ukrainian Crisis Media Center in February 2017.

      The goal of the grant and the anticipated results

-          An IT tool has been developed in consultations with MPs and other stakeholders and based on the questions from the unified reporting form. An MP can enter the necessary information into the fields of the questionnaire (form) and automatically receives the generated infographics of his report, ready for sharing in a simple and understandable format.

-          The IT tool is built into the web portal of the Verkhovna Rada and is available on the personal page of every MP;

-          Public are aware of IT tool; MPs are aware and use the tool on regular basis (at least 30%);

-          The percentage of MPs reporting about their activities has increased;

-          The MPs’ reports have been analyzed. The results obtained have been published in at least one top-level periodical of Ukraine and shared in social networks.

Technical requirements:

• To ensure that web design of the IT tool is adapted to the design of the web services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (“Portal for a Public Discussion of Draft Laws of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”, “Electronic Petition”, “Open Data Portal”, etc.);

• To ensure the development of functionality in line with the software requirements for the web services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine (“Portal for a Public Discussion of Draft Laws of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine”, etc.);

• To ensure full integration of the security sub-system, to prevent bots from manipulating with registration, voting, and discussion results, and to provide authorization / authentication of solutions in line with the existing systems of the VRU, in particular:

• Authorization / authentication subsystems of the administrative side of the System are integrated with the Active Directory services of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.

• To ensure full compliance with the software requirements for the solution:

HTTP-server - Internet Information Services (IIS) 8+, database server - PostgreSql 9.5+ (integration with Oracle Database 12c). Development is performed using Visual Studio 2015/2017 and the distributed version control and collaboration system Git, ASP.NET MVC v. 5.2.3+ Framework or ASP.NET Core v. 1.1+, the C# programming language (.Net Framework 4.6 + / .NET Core v. 1.1+), the database access framework ADO.NET Entity Framework 6.1.3 + / Entity Framework Core (Code First approach), jQuery 2.1.4 +, jQuery UI 1.11.4+.

• To guarantee that adaptive layout of interface design is developed: the system must have fluid layout and must be adapted to different types of screens, modes, and resolutions (workstation, tablet, smartphone; landscape / portrait).

• Flexibility and adaptability of interfaces must be ensured by html5 methods and JavaScript libraries: CSS Flexible Box Layout Module; CSS3 Media Queries; JavaScript libraryBootstrap.

LOT 2: for proposals for small grants to enhance two-way communication between the

Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine and Ukrainian citizens.

INCREASING CITIZENS’ AWARENESS ON POSSIBILITIES OF INFLUENCE ON THE POLITICAL PROCESS

1. I.                    Spreading ideas of transparency through CSOs at the regional level

Current situation

Since the Parliamentary Openness Action Plan was adopted, a large number of civil society organizations and donor programs have contributed to its implementation. Over this period of time, a lot of tools have been developed to monitor the activities of the Verkhovna Rada and to engage the citizens in the legislative process. In particular:  

-          Online platform for commenting on draft laws;

-          Public procurement monitoring portal;

-          DoZorro monitoring portal;

-          Portal “They Vote for You” rada4you.org;

-          Map of MPs’ and political parties’ offices;

-          Map of electoral districts;

-          Monitoring of MPs elected under the majoritarian electoral system;

-          MPs’ profiles;

-          “Rada Talking”: search across verbatim reports;

-          Joint voting of parliamentary factions;

-          Online tool for visualizing reports of political parties;

-          Wall of Shame for MPs guilty of non-personal voting;

-          Tool to visualize cooperation of MPs in the initiation of draft laws;

-          List of heroes of anticorruption media investigations.

The goal of the grant and the anticipated results

To implement para. 2.4 of the Parliamentary Openness Action Plan, “Raising public awareness of the activities of the parliament and its role in the institutional development of the state”, to share the information within a wide circle of active citizens outside the capital city, to instill in the citizens the sense of responsibility for their votes in the parliamentary election and of the opportunities to influence the political processes in the period in between the election, the following actions with the following results are expected:

-           Training materials on the following topics have been designed:

A) monitoring tender procedures and transparency of the expenditures of the Verkhovna Rada.

B) work with open data and investigative journalism on their basis.

C) tools for citizens to engage with MPs after election and monitor their work.

D) the difference between “citizen’s petition” and “information request”; legal issues; how to file a petition/request in order to be heard.

E) tools for participating in the legislative process: online commenting on draft laws, committee hearings, committee meetings, influence through NGOs and MPs, etc.;

-          Educational workshops have been conducted in the cities of Ukraine with the participation of representatives of the VRU Secretariat, MPs, experts, journalists, and representatives of civil society;

-          In the follow-up of the workshops, the participants submitted information requests and citizens’ petitions on the issues of interest; comments on the pending draft laws or those under committee’s review are posted; materials on the basis of the information from the open data portal, E-data or Prozorro are prepared and published.

-          Panel discussions on political engagement have been held with students majoring in socio-political studies at the local universities;

-          Local media produced materials on ways to influence political process;

-          The number of people using the VRU activity monitoring tools is increased.  

1. II.                  Wide citizen engagement on the inclusive political process

Current situation

According to the results of public opinion research conducted in October 2016 by Rada for Europe at the request of the Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament is trusted by only 7% of the Ukrainian citizens. One of the reasons for this rating has been identified as citizens’ limited knowledge on the functions of the Verkhovna Rada and its MPs, and on how to engage with the VRU. Between May 2016 and March 2017, a working group including MPs, representatives of the VRU Secretariat, journalists, and representatives of civil society developed a draft VRU communication strategy, which aims to establish a system of coordinated and effective use of VRU communication capabilities to raise the level of public trust and to ensure that the parliament is perceived as an effective legislative body.

The goal of the grant and the anticipated results

To implement para. 2.6 of the Parliamentary Openness Action Plan “Development and implementation of the parliamentary media strategy”, the following actions with the following results are anticipated:

-          Number of messages have been developed and used as the basis for posters and short videos. The messages aim to draw public attention to the ways in which they can engage with the VRU in between elections, including functions of MPs, ways of interaction with MPs, mandates of MPs and local authorities, importance of the requirement for reporting on the implementation of the election program, tools for easy access to information on the activities of the Verkhovna Rada;

-          Social advertising campaign is developed and implemented to distribute the messages;

-          A series of trainings have been conducted for regional journalists on the tools for processing the parliamentary information and participating in the committee meetings;

-          Publication of thematic articles in regional media (at least 5).

The granting process will comply with the procedures and regulations of United Nations Development Programme.

The current Call for Proposals opens on July 4, 2017. The deadline for submitting proposals is July 28, 2017. The deadline can be extended if insufficient acceptable proposals are received in any of the activities within the 2 lot areas.

2. SCOPE OF THE FUNDING

The maximum total funds available in seed grants is €100,000, and the maximum amount available for a single grant is €20,000.

The grant shall cover up to 90% project cost. Not less than 10% of the project cost is to be provided by the contribution of the grant beneficiary. This contribution may be financial and in-kind (for example, wages of employees, work of volunteers, office expenses, etc.).

The maximum duration of each project is 7 months.

3. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

Organizations eligible to receive funding through this Call for Proposals under any or both of the Lots must meet the following criteria:

(a)             
Eligible organizations

о Have a status of a non-governmental public or charitable organization officially registered in Ukraine;

о Have a proven record of at least 1 year of active operation in the area of citizen engagement in democratic processes;

о Have a proven record of relevant project implementation and reporting;

о Have appropriate experts engaged in project implementation;

о Have a well-established and sound financial management system capable of properly managing and accounting for grant funds.

Proposals from organizations that do not pass the eligibility criteria will not be considered.

(b)              Eligible costs

Eligible costs must:

о be necessary for carrying out the project activities;

о have actually been Incurred by the applicant during the implementation period;

о comply with the principles of sound financial management, in particular value for money and cost-effectiveness;

о be properly recorded, identifiable and verifiable, and be backed by original supporting documents.

Grants may only be used to cover the following costs:

                о staff salaries and expert fees;

о goods and services necessary for project activities;

о communication and information services;

                   о purchase of consultative services provided that these are essential to project goals and objectives;

о renting, Catering, and other services envisaged by the project activities;

о printing and copying;

о communication costs;

о consumables and supplies;

        о travel costs (provided that travel complies with internal UNDP and European Union regulations);

The following costs are ineligible:

о costs of project proposal preparation;

о debts;

о currency exchange losses;

о international travel.

1. 4.       APPLICATION PROCESS

In order to be accepted for review process, applications must include the full package of documents as stated in the CfP, and be submitted in the form and on the time described further in the CfP. UNDP will determine eligibility of applications, and will prepare the eligible applications for review and evaluation by the Grant Appraisal Committee (GAC).

The CfPs will be advertised through the web sites of UNDP Ukraine (www.undp.org.ua).

Applications (project proposals) must be submitted in the Ukrainian language.

The application package shall consist of:

1. The completed Application form (filled out on a computer as Microsoft Word file) clearly stating the Lot and proposed activity within that Lot in which the application is proposing to carry out work;

2. Copy of the Statute of the applicant organization (PDF);

3. Copy of State registration certificate (PDF);

4. Annual report

5. Banking details (PDF);

6. CVs of proposed specialists for project implementation (Microsoft Word or PDF).

The document package shall be archived as *.zip or *.rar and not be password-protected; it shall not be larger than 5Mb total. The package shall be sent to [email protected] with the letter title: Грантова заявка 2017_Назва організації

Applications sent through means different from the one described above will not be considered.

Deadline for submitting proposals: July 28, 2017

1. EVALUATION OF PROJECT PROPOSALS

(a) Grant Appraisal Committee

To ensure full transparency and equity of the process, a Grant Appraisal Committee (GAC) will be established that will select and approve the grant projects. The Grant Appraisal Committee is an authorized body in charge of the review, selection and approval of submitted grant project proposals. The Grant Appraisal Committee shall have the following tasks:

1. Review and appraisal of grant project proposals;
2. Recommend project proposals for funding or rejection of project proposals.

GAC members will include UNDP and VRU representatives, and external recognized experts in the subject area. The Grant Appraisal Committee may decide to request independent expert opinion during the grant project selection process. UNDP will be responsible for establishing GAC and assuring the organization of Its meetings

(c)       Evaluation criteria

о Quality and responsiveness of the project proposal to the priorities and objectives broad themes highlighted in the CfP;

о Comprehensive approach to problem solving;

о Experience of carrying out actions envisaged by the project;

о Feasibility of the project, availability of clear implementation plan, clarity of expected results;

о Sustainability of the proposed interventions

о Adequacy of budget, availability of co-funding.

(d)            Additional conditions

о Project proposals submitted after the deadline will not be considered;

о Materials submitted to the call for proposals are not returned and reviewed;

о The participant are notified abort results of the competition by a letter;

о Final decision with regard to project or application is not subject to review;

о The reasons of rejection of the project proposal are not explained.

6. REPORTING, MONITORING AND EVALUATION OF GRANT PROJECTS

(a)     Monitoring & evaluation, frameworks of project implementation

The Grantee is responsible for monitoring project implementation and evaluating the result. UNDP will monitor the project through Grantee reports, meetings with project personnel and stakeholders, and participation in project events.

(a)              Reporting

The Grantee shall submit the following reports according to UNDP format:

    о Interim reports, Including description of activities, result, and agreed monitoring indicators, as well as financial reports (to be specified in the relevant Contract);

    о Brief reports on demand occasionally requested by UNDP in cases when information on project implementation is required in between reporting periods;

    о A Completion report, including a summary of activities and results as well as financial report for total duration of a contract.

1. 7.      FINANCING

The Grantee will receive an advance instalment for planned activities within the frameworks of grant agreement. The amount of advance and subsequent instalments will be established in the grant agreement, on an individual basis based on the total amount of grant, kind of activity, etc. Subsequent instalments will be transferred after interim reports of the grantees are received and approved.

1. 8.      ACCESS AND FINANCIAL CHECKS

Grantees shall ensure that UNDP may exercise the right to conduct desk reviews and on-the-spot checks on the use made of the grant. Further, the European Commission, OLAF European Anti-Fraud Office - European Commission, the European Court of Auditors and any authorized representatives of the European Union may exercise their rights to conduct desk reviews and on-the-spot checks on the use made of the EU contribution, as defined in Article 17 of the PAGODA General Conditions[1].

For details, please contact Natali Vatamaniuk, Open Parliament Initiative Coordinator, at:

[email protected]