Update on STAR-Ghana’s GESI and Media Calls for Proposals and Concept Notes
In December, 2016, STAR-Ghana announced its Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) and Media calls for proposals and Concept notes. Both calls were divided into 2(two) components (Small Grants Component and Strategic Partnership Component). While the Strategic partnership components were opened to national level civil society and or media organisations, the Small Grants Components were opened to Community Based Organisations (CBOs), District level Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Community Radio Stations and Networks and Citizen Groups.
Two hundred and twenty-six (226) organisations responded to the call. Out of this number a total of 164 organisations responded to the GESI call was follows: 80 for the Small Grants Component and 84 for the Strategic Partnership Component with 62 responding to the Media Call as follows: 32 and 30 for the Small Grants and Strategic Partnership Components respectively.
STAR-Ghana has contracted Independent Assessors (IAs) who are currently undertaking the assessments of the proposals. The recommendations from the Independent Assessment will be presented to the Grants Sub-Committee (of the Steering Committee), on 14th February, 2017 who will in turn review and shortlist the applications. Feedback will be sent to all applicants from 17th February, 2017.
This will be followed by a due diligence exercise for all shortlisted applicants for both the Small Grants Components and the Strategic Partnership Components. The due diligence exercise will validate information provided by applicants; assess the organisation’s capacity (human and technical resources); review the project budget, the organisations internal governance, financial and Monitoring and Evaluation systems and also make recommendations for capacity support to enable applicants deliver on their projects.
The recommendations from the Grants Sub-Committee together with findings from the due diligence exercise will be sent to the Steering Committee for final approval for the Small Grants Components of both the Media and GESI calls. Applicants for the small grants components are expected to receive feedback from STAR-Ghana from 1st March, 2017
Shortlisted applicants of the Strategic Partnership Component will be invited to the next stage of the process which is the Proposal Development Stage. This stage is a combination of workshop and mentoring process. Proposals from the shortlisted organisations, together with findings from the due diligence process, will be presented to the Steering Committee for vetting, final approval and sign off from 23rd March, 2017. Applicants should expect feedback from STAR-Ghana from 1st April, 2017.
STAR Ghana wishes to express its appreciation to all the 226 organisations that submitted the applications for both the GESI and Media Calls.
