Deadline: 29 November 2019

Siemenpuu Foundation has announced calls for project proposals in the thematic areas of:

• Biocultural Rights of Indigenous Forest Communities
• Conservation and Sustainable Use of Forest and Coastal Ecosystems
• Rural Women and Food Sovereignty

Thematic Focus Areas

• Biocultural Rights of Indigenous Forest Communities
  • Eligible country: Kenya (with potential East African regional linkages)
  • Siemenpuu calls for proposals for projects supporting indigenous people and their communities to defend themselves, their biocultural life-heritages and their livelihoods against land grabbings, displacement and drought. Projects should secure the biocultural rights of communities. Projects are especially welcomed from areas of indigenous biodiversity, where the communities have adapted to living from its regeneration. They can include facilitation of the communities in advocacy work, organising themselves, and for reviving the biodiversity on which the indigenous communities base their sustainable, resilient ways of life. Special emphasis in the projects should be on the rights of women, as they are often carriers of sustainable heritage in their communities.
  • The supported projects should be based in Kenya, but may include regional cooperation elements, considering that the problems and challenges are regionally shared and potential solutions could be mutually strengthening and promote ethnic and regional stability.
• Conservation and Sustainable Use of Forest and Coastal Ecosystems
  • Eligible countries: Liberia and Mozambique
  • Siemenpuu calls for project proposals on community-based conservation of natural forests and coastal ecosystems. Conservation shall be advanced in a socially sustainable way, respecting the rights of forest-dependent local communities. The project support is geared towards promoting practices and advocating laws and policies that prevent deforestation and degradation of natural resources, and advance community rights to sustainable livelihoods. The projects to be funded shall proactively increase the capacity and voice of women and vulnerable people in natural resource management. Adaptation to and mitigation of climate change should be inherent components of the supported projects, adaptation referring to reduction of vulnerability to phenomena caused by climate change. Ecosystems of interest are tropical rainforests and coastal ecosystems (mangroves and seagrass meadows). Areas with high biodiversity and carbon stock are preferred.
• Rural Women and Food Sovereignty
  • Eligible countries: Liberia, Mali and Mozambique
  • Siemenpuu calls for project proposals to nurture agricultural biodiversity together with rural women’s rights and empowerment for instance through advocating rights to land, use and conservation of farmer managed seed varieties and other agroecological practices. Projects should aim at rural women in low-income communities reaching sustainable livelihoods and food sovereignty through resilient cultivation and production practices that provide sufficient and healthy nutrition, conserve agricultural biodiversity including local seed varieties, mitigate climate change by increasing soil carbon stock, and help adapting to its impacts on both short and long-term. Project proposals are especially welcomed from women’s organisations. They are encouraged to include activities to strengthen small-scale women farmers’ social organisation and advocacy to increase women’s inclusion in agricultural policy-making on local and national level. With its project support Siemenpuu endorses to the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas.

Grant Information

Siemenpuu’s grants are in the range of 30 000 – 75 000 € per project. Projects need to include a minimum of 10 % of self-financing (either cash, voluntary work and/or donated goods). Projects can start from April 2020 with a maximum duration of 18-20 months. Qualified applicants need to be registered local civil society organisations in eligible countries. Siemenpuu encourages especially women’s CSOs to apply.

Criteria

General project funding criteria for all countries and themes:

• Recipient organization is formally registered, it has the capacity to manage project support and its internal decision-making should be democratic and equal
• Reliable bookkeeping and project auditing according to national laws and given guidelines
• Activities aim at improving the state of the environment and promote climate resilience and low-carbon development alternatives
• Activities aim to strengthen the position of vulnerable groups of people and communities in an environmentally, culturally, economically and politically sustainable manner
• Communities are involved in the definition, design and implementation of activities
• Priority will be given to the most needy organizations, networks and movements that operate on and support the grassroots level
• Activities aim to improve citizens’ opportunities for social participation and to make political decision-making more democratic and transparent
• Activities aim to foster the networking and cooperation of civil society actors
• Activities promote gender equality, particularly women’s and girls’ rights
• Activities promote rights of other groups that face discrimination, such as people with disabilities, indigenous peoples and ethnic, religious and sexual minorities
• Human rights are taken into account in the project design (minimum: human rights sensitive level)
• Activities are non-violent
• Activities and results should be replicable, as far as possible, after the end of the project, with local resources and expertise
• Activities involve, where possible, new and innovative approaches
• The approaches also take into consideration systemic factors and contribute to a just transition to ecological democracy on various levels.

For more information, visit https://fundsf.org/2KyaDIo