Introduction and Background
The United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women), grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, works for the elimination of discrimination against women and girls; the empowerment of women; and the achievement of equality between women and men as partners and beneficiaries of development, human rights, humanitarian action and peace and security. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates United Nations system efforts to ensure that commitments on gender equality and gender mainstreaming translate into action throughout the world. It provides support to Member States’ efforts and priorities in meeting their gender equality goals and for building effective partnerships with civil society and other relevant actors.
UN Women Ukraine implements its Country Strategy for 2018-2022, covering the following thematic areas:
- Making gender equality priorities central to national reforms, governance, planning and budgeting;
- Ending violence against women and girls; and
- Strengthening implementation of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda.
Ukraine has exerted considerable efforts to address gender inequalities pervasive at all levels of society.
Political and institutional changes were introduced to strengthen the national gender mechanisms and mainstream gender equality in the national reforms. The most significant recent developments are the enactment of national reforms and the adoption of strategic documents aiming at eliminating gender-based discrimination and inequalities, such as: National Action Plan for Implementation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on WPS for 2016-2020 and its mid-term review; State Programme on Equal Rights and Opportunities (2017-2020), National Action Plan for the implementation of the Recommendations of CEDAW Committee to the 8th Periodic Report of the Government of Ukraine (20182020) and the localization of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted in September 2017.
Who can apply?
The applicant must be a women-led CSO or a human rights CSO legally established and operating in Ukraine.
The applicant may apply if it:
- is a registered CSO in operation for at least three years;
- is not on the Consolidated UN Security Council Sanctions List;
- is not being investigated for fraud, corruption, sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or other wrongdoing;
- has not had funding received from UN Women entirely or partly written off by UN Women;
- is not currently engaged as an Implementing Partner (IP) or Responsible Party (RP) for UN Women;
- has not been engaged as an IP/RP for UN Women at any time after 21 November 2019;
- is not a government entity;
- is not a UN organization;
- is not an established CSO with the capacity to be engaged as an Implementing Partner/Responsible Party;
- has sufficient capacity to collaborate with various stakeholders;
- has sufficient financial stewardship, including having adequate financial policies and procedures in place to manage the small grant; and,
- past performance has been deemed satisfactory by UN Women (if it has received small grants previously or been engaged as an IP/RP before 21 November 2019).
The applicant must be operating in one or more of the following areas:
- Women’s leadership and participation in the WPS Agenda at the local, regional and national levels;
- Women-led peacebuilding, peaceful co-existence and/or social cohesion;
- Conflict-related sexual violence;
- Gender-responsive Covid-19 response and recovery for the benefit of vulnerable groups of women, facing multiple forms of discrimination in at least one of the of the following regions: Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
Application deadline: 4 November 2020 by midnight Ukraine local time