Strengthening South Asian Civil Society Climate Advocacy

The U.S. Department of State's U.S Embassy Islamabad announces an open competition for one assistance award through this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), contingent on funding availability, through the Public Diplomacy Grants Program. The grantee will implement a program to strengthen South Asian civil society participation and climate advocacy at the Conference of Parties (COP) and through other public engagement activities. The program will identify, convene, and mentor influential civil society leaders whose work across South Asia advances climate action in line with climate change impact data and U.S. foreign policy. Participants will be selected from Pakistan and at least three of the following South Asian countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

The program will establish a cadre of likely COP participants and will assist them in developing realistic, concrete, and data-driven policy recommendations that will ground their advocacy at the COP. Participants may be influential and established or emerging climate leaders who are employed by, or volunteer for, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), international governmental organizations (IGOs), academia, think tanks, other civil society organizations, and/or for-profit companies with a demonstrated commitment to climate-focused corporate social responsibility (CSR).

The program will develop a 9-12 month series of activities for participants which will result in: regular virtual engagements, trainings, courses, and/or workshops; at least one in-person engagement (conference or similar activity) ahead of the COP that will bring participants together to collaborate with regional counterparts and experts; the development of either country-specific or issue-specific white paper(s) ahead of the COP that will define the group's policy recommendations; potential funding for participants' travel to the COP; opportunities for participants to engage with press and media to amplify the policy recommendations; and ongoing monitoring and evaluation to continually assess the program activities with a final report summarizing the program's outputs and outcomes.