Call for Proposals: Civil Society Organisations from all Albania for Partnership with We Effect Europe Region

 1. Background and Purpose

We Effect is a development cooperation organisation funded in 1958 by Sweedish cooerative movement with the aim of fighting poverty. Seventy Swedish cooperative and/or customer-owned companies and organisations are members of We Effect. We Effect’s mission is to enable people living in poverty to improve their living conditions, defend their rights and contribute to a just society. We Effect works with a strong focus on sustainable rural development and women’s rights. The target groups for our development cooperation are our partner organisations and their existing and potential members. We Effect applies a rights-based approach. This means that our development activities are developed in dialogue with our partner organisations, with strong local ownership, characterised by accountability, transparency, non-discrimination, and meaningful participation. Our values are respect, transparency, and togetherness. We Effect works in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. We Effect Europe Regional Office operates in Albania, North Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo.

For more information of the work of We Effect please visit weeffect.org and facebook.com/WeEffectEurope We Effect’s strategy focuses on the right to food with a gender transformative, climate just and rights-based approach. In this strategy, We Effect affirms a commitment to working on addressing the root causes of the denial of the right to food including unjust and unequal national, regional, and global food systems; harmful gender norms that perpetuate inequalities and the impacts of climate change that significantly affects the agriculture sector and particularly women.

The upcoming We Effect Programme for the period 2023-2027 is funded by Sida's department for Civil Society aiming to operationalise the We Effect ROEU Regional Strategy 2023-2027. The Regional Strategy for We Effect Europe has the focus on the right to food and food security, through the following main strategic areas:

• Strong and vibrant civil society organisations (organisational development)
• Business and production development (with focus on food security)
• Gender equality and human rights
• Regional cooperation and advocacy

The main strategic areas are covering the 5 result areas of the new programme:

• Strong civil society organisations
• Equitable and just food systems
• Resilience
• Sustainable livelihood and
• Gender equality

We Effect Europe Regional Office is currently looking for partnerships with qualified CSOs, associations, or other types of member-based[1] organizations registered and active in Albania that share the core values of We Effect stipulated above and are working in the following rural development areas:

 Strengthening CSOs active in rural development able to act as a voice for and provide quality services to their members, and to be promoters of gender equality in rural development;

• Business and production development with a focus on right to food: members – men and women - of partner organisations strengthened and capacitated to produce, adapt and get included in the local, national and regional markets and value chains;
• Gender equality through full integration of the human rights-based approach into the
  development work and mainstreaming gender equality in all programme activities through a strong focus on women’s economic empowerment through access to economic opportunities, access to land and control over resources, as well as women in leadership positions and participation in decision making.
• Regional development cooperation

We Effect Europe Region is inviting national and local civil society organisations in Albania, to submit expression of interest for potential partnership with We Effect Europe Region for new programme period 2023-2027.

The programme seeks to support the interventions that directly contribute to the achivment of We Effect ROEU strategic and programme objectives, as well as partner organisations' strategic objectives that are aligned with those objectives. 

2. Qualification Requirements / Criteria for Choice of Partners

For an organisation to be considered as a We Effect partner, it must:

1.   Share We Effect’s goals and values as expressed in We Effect Europe Regional Strategy 2023-2027
2.      Have been registered for at least one year and operate within the laws of the country concerned
3.      Be politically and religiously independent
4.      Show commitment to be democratically governed both in policy and practice
5.      Be a member-based organisation
6.      Operates in in one or more main strategic areas as defined in We Effect ROEU Regional Strategy
7.       Show commitment to manage development cooperation funding according to jointly established working principles and rules
8.      Show commitment to work towards financial sustainability
9.      Adhere to the rights-based principles of participation, accountability, non-discrimination, empowerment, and transparency

Organisations working at a national level or with decentralised offices and branches are strongly encouraged to apply. International organisations are not eligible for funding under this call.

3. Application

The Application should contain:

 I.            An Expression of Interest of maximum 3 pages that includes the following information:

         1.       Organisational details including legal status and year of registration

         2.      Short description of the work of the organisation including:

              o   Organisational structure

              o   Membership structure

              o   List of implemented projects

              o   Web site address

              o   Contact person

        3.      Experience of working in sustainable rural development and sustainable livelihood through human-rights based approach.

        4.      Experience of working with the most marginalised and excluded communities

         5.      Membership in national and regional networks/umbrella organisations

 NB: Applications from CSOs that are members of networks/umbrella organisations that are already supported by We Effect will not be taken into consideration

       6.      Organisational strategic areas of work in the rural development sector and their complementarity with the main strategic areas and main result areas       stipulated in the We Effect ROEU Regional Strategy 2023-2027

 II.        Completed “Partner Assessment Basic Information and Alignment”

 Interested Applicants should request the documents “Partner Assessment Basic Information and Alignment” and “Regional Strategy 2023-2027 ROEU” from:

 Furkan Daci – We Effect ROEU Programme Administrator (furkan.daci@weeffect.org) latest by 21.03.2022.

 Applications should be submitted by email to: info_roeu@weeffect.org; furkan.daci@weeffect.org; sasho.angelovski@weeffect.org; latest by Friday, 25.03.2022.

The subject line of the email shall state “Expression of interest for partnership with We Effect”. One organization can submit only one application.

Applications not compliant with the above instructions and deadline will not be taken into consideration.

We Effect ROEU will contact only shortlisted organisations with whom we would like to discuss or explore further possibilities for partnership.

MISCONDUCT

If you want to alert, We Effect on suspected discrimination, corruption, or other serious misconduct during the application process, do not hesitate to use our Whistleblowing System.