U.S. Embassy Lome, Africa Regional Democracy Fund

The U.S. Embassy in Lome-Togo through this Notice of Funding Opportunity is pleased to announce an open competition for organizations to submit applications to carry out a program to conduct capacity building, accountability and youth engagement workshops to strengthen democratic institutions, improve governance, and promote respect for human rights in Togo

Program Objectives:

Togo is in the midst of a decentralization process and is devolving power to 116 newly created communes. This is an unprecedented opportunity for citizens to play a bigger role in local governance. This program seeks to increase the capacity of the new local councils as well as citizens' ability to hold them accountable. It also seeks to facilitate increased exchange between the councils and citizens, with a focus on women, youth, and people with disabilities.

Program activities should include:

• Work with relevant citizen groups on sustained citizen monitoring of public service delivery and project execution to increase accountability and improve delivery of basic services in selected communities.
• The development of an app with a dashboard of services (showing different local public services such as education, health, water, etc.) to make these services more responsive and transparent.
• Workshops with relevant local councils to help them respond effectively to citizen monitoring activities, as well as increase their capacity and understanding of their new roles. The goal is to increase both citizen demand for good governance and the new councils' ability to supply good governance.
• Fight marginalization at the local level by equipping disadvantaged groups (people with disabilities, women, and youth) with job skills and opportunities to engage with local councils. This could include activities such as promoting social entrepreneurship, agricultural entrepreneurship, and partnerships like the twin cities initiative.
• American content/values in form of resources, consultants or experts related to the topic address in this call to contribute to the implementation of this award

Strong proposals should select a limited number of focus districts and include activities such as workshops, trainings, media interactions, and public awareness campaigns.