In order to further women’s economic empowerment (WEE), the ICR Facility is encouraging groups in the public and commercial sectors that operate in African, Caribbean, or Pacific (ACP) nations to submit proposals for free technical support.
You may unleash the enormous potential of women in ACP countries as workers, investors, and entrepreneurs with the aid of the ICR Facility.
Which areas might benefit from the assistance they can offer?
- Addressing Legal and Regulatory Barriers: We support legal reforms that promote Women`s Economic Empowerment. This involves, for example, providing support to policymakers, government agencies, and relevant stakeholders to change or update existing laws and regulations to make it easier to operate a business or for women to have equal rights to property and collateral to facilitate access to credit. This includes simplifying lengthy and complex processes and procedures for doing business, where this affects women disproportionally.
- Promoting Gender-Responsive Policies: Our aim is to help organisations implement or advocate for gender-responsive policies, opening doors for women-owned businesses and women workers to thrive. This includes for example ensuring that economic policies, public procurement processes or Government budget processes consider the needs of women as entrepreneurs and workers.
- Bridging Data Gaps: We provide comprehensive support to organisations in addressing data gaps related to gender-sensitive investment climate policies. We facilitate evidence-based policy-making by enabling organisations to generate and analyse gender-disaggregated data. This includes gathering data on the status of women as entrepreneurs and workers, analysing women’s access to crucial resources like finance, information, and business skills in key sectors, and strengthening the capacities of local institutions, such as National Statistic Offices. Moreover, we empower local actors to organise, process, and interpret data, so they can contribute to informed and effective policy-making .
- Strengthening Women’s Participation in Investment Climate Reform Processes: We enhance women’s participation in public-private dialogue (PPD) processes to influence investment climate policies. This involves promoting the involvement of women employees, women business owners, and women business associations in PPD processes. Additionally, we focus on strengthening the capacities of women’s organisations to engage effectively in PPD.
- Supporting private sector organisations championing women’s economic empowerment: Recognizing the critical role played by private sector organisations, such as chambers of commerce and business associations, we offer specialized support aimed at assisting these entities in making WEE an integral part of their strategic support for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).
Eligibility criteria
- The ICR Facility is open to applications from sub-regional,national or regional government entities, development finance institutions as well as public-private dialogue mechanisms.
- Business associations, cooperatives, chambers of commerce, clusters and Organizations or networks of business support, formal networks of private sector stakeholders and other non-state networks engaged in improving the business environment are eligible as long as the support is connected to a dialogue process involving governmental entities.
- Single private for-profit companies or actors that cannot prove a formal representation role of a larger group of private sector stakeholders are not eligible.
- Requests must come from an entity based in a member state of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS)
- Requests must be aimed at improving the business and investment climate, in particular to support women or youth economic empowerment, in member states of the OACPS (regional multi-country initiatives as well as subnational initiatives are also welcome).
- Requests must be part of a wider medium/long term strategy, reform process, or PPD mechanism.
- Requests must respond to targeted and specific needs under an ongoing initiative in an ACP country or region*.
- The proposed intervention can be implemented under a maximum of 90 expert days.
Why partner with the ICR Facility?
You will partner with a Facility that has a track record to implement technical assistance interventions across more than 60 countries. You will receive targeted international and local expertise and gain international exposure for your reform efforts. The ICR Facility can provide targeted technical assistance for up 90 expert days which can be deployed within one year. To a limited extend, we can also support the logistical costs for workshops and consultation meetings to help shape your policy and reform ideas. It’s important to note that our support does not encompass grants, funding for your organisation’s staff, conference expenses, or the procurement of equipment.
Click here to apply.
https://www.icr-facility.eu/partner-with-us/request-expertise/call-for-proposals/
Application deadline
12th December, 2023
