Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor for all Organizations

Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor for all Organizations


Project Description

The U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) announces an open competition for projects that support early action in response to atrocities, including crimes against humanity, genocide, and war crimes, as well as other large scale and deliberate attacks against civilians.

Within this policy objective, DRL seeks programs that measurably reduce climate-induced or climate-related atrocity risk and fragility in the selected countries. Programs should effectively pilot an approach to atrocity prevention that integrates the increasing atrocity risk that climate change and environmental degradation poses and supports the formulation and implementation of atrocity prevention, response, and recovery measures that are responsive to that risk.

Programs should include the perspectives of women, girls, and vulnerable communities, noting that climate change heightens women and girls’ risk of encountering gender-based violence, as they are often the primary procurers or managers of these increasingly scarce natural resources.

Proposed projects may target up to 2 countries, with at least one country in Sub-Saharan Africa.

DRL seeks programs that contribute to the following outcomes:

CSOs and local actors have the skills, tools, and capacity to identify atrocities that are climate-related or otherwise impacted or driven by climate change and environmental degradation and safely advocate for local preventative measures based on relevant information.

CSOs and local actors develop and implement mechanisms to expose relevant stakeholders (including those responsible for response, enforcement, and/or accountability at different levels, targeted groups, and potential disablers) to knowledge about climate-related atrocity risks and engage them in using early warning information about relevant risks.

Related to the above, CSOs formulate and advocate for actionable preventive or response measures to climate-related atrocity risks that integrate the voices of impacted communities and lay out pathways for relevant stakeholders to take action.
Competitive programs will also include opportunities for subgrants and other methods of support to address needs identified by local civil society stakeholders and ensure local buy-in and ownership as part of an overall sustainability goal. Competitive proposals will also demonstrate experience operating in the country(s) selected and an understanding of a range of atrocity prevention approaches.

All programs should aim to have impact that leads to reforms and should have the potential for sustainability beyond DRL resources. DRL’s preference is to avoid duplicating past efforts by supporting new and creative approaches. This does not exclude from consideration projects that improve upon or expand existing successful projects in a new and complementary way. DRL is committed to advancing equity and support for underserved and underrepresented communities.

Programs should seek strategies for integration and inclusion of individuals/organizations/beneficiaries that can bring perspectives based on their religion, sex, disability, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics, national origin, age, genetic information, marital status, parental status, pregnancy, political affiliation, or veteran’s status.

Programs should be demand-driven and locally led to the extent possible. DRL requires all programs to be non-discriminatory and expects implementers to include strategies for nondiscrimination of individuals/organizations/beneficiaries based on race, color, religion, sex, gender identity, gender expression, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, pregnancy, national origin, disability, age, genetic information, marital status, parental status, political affiliation, or veteran’s status.

Competitive proposals may also include a summary budget and budget narrative for 12 additional months following the proposed period of performance, indicated above. This information should indicate what objective(s) and/or activities could be accomplished with additional time and/or funds beyond the proposed period of performance.

Where appropriate, competitive proposals may include: