Asian Development Bank's Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department calls for Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to submit project concepts to deliver services that ease the impact of COVID-19 on poor and vulnerable populations in Armenia, Cambodia, Cook Islands, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Mongolia, Myanmar, Niue, the Philippines, Samoa, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Viet Nam.

Objectives

Below are the expected outputs of this technical assistance:

• Increased community-based crisis prevention, mitigation, and adaptation capacity.
• Support informal social protection systems stressed by COVID-19 impacts
• Provide economic support for livelihoods affected by COVID-19

The focus areas of these interventions may include:

• Prevention and mitigation output: activities include conducting risk communication campaigns, establishing contact tracing and reporting systems, training and managing volunteers, setting up handwashing points, raising awareness related to COVID-19 vaccines to increase uptake and address vaccine hesitancy, and establishing support systems for at-risk persons.
• Social protection output: scale up ongoing successful social protection programs and social services that CSOs are currently leading to support vulnerable people.
• Economic support output: activities include alternative livelihood programs or skills retraining and job support.

Funding Information

Awards will be a maximum of $500,000.

Target CSOs

ADB invites CSOs that have expertise in the expected outputs and focus areas mentioned above. Interested CSOs will also be screened based on the following criteria:

• Geographic presence in Asia and the Pacific, including in-country offices
• Experience of working in similar areas including relevant experience in projects/programs of similar nature and complexity in at least one region of Asia and the Pacific, and in at least one of the three focus areas.
• Extent and nature of partnerships/collaborations with local CSOs or CSOs in each country where the CSO has presence and plans to support through the ADB technical assistance’s pandemic emergency response

ADB defines CSOs as nonprofit organizations independent from the government that operate around common interests. They vary in size, interests, and function, and include NGOs, youth groups, community-based organizations, independent academic and research institutes, professional associations, foundations, faith-based organizations, people’s organizations, and labor unions. CSOs represent the interests of their members or others.

For more information, visit ADB.