Open Door Grants

With the support of the European Union, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) is launching Open Door Grants*, an ongoing call for project proposals for Eastern Partnership (EaP) OGP members with a focus on using the OGP platform for expanding civil society engagement and building cross-sectoral partnerships in the areas of integrity, anti-corruption, public service delivery, justice, crisis response and recovery, access to information, open governance and inclusion during and after war reconstruction and recovery, and civic space. Selected projects are expected to support OGP action plan implementation on country level and to boost cross-border thematic collaboration.

The call provides an agile response to emerging challenges at the country level. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

The call is announced as part of the EU for Integrity Programme for the Eastern Partnership, funded by the European Union and jointly implemented by the Open Government Partnership and the OECD Anti-Corruption Network.

The proposals are reviewed quarterly, with a deadline for each application round at the end of each quarter. Details about the application process are provided below.

*Open Door Grants is an open, responsive, and quarterly grantmaking window led by the OGP Support Unit. It focuses on project ideas that offer a response to emerging  challenges on a country level.

The Open Government Partnership Support Unit aims to support government and civil society in member countries, including in the Eastern Partnership region, to strengthen co-creation and implementation of nationally or locally-led commitments with potentially high impact that can lead to increasing government transparency, improving accountability, strengthening citizen engagement and government responsiveness.

In late 2020, the Open Government Partnership (OGP) partnered with the European Commission and the OECD Anti-Corruption Network (ACN) on the EU for Integrity Programme, a multi-year initiative focused on providing assistance to the EaP countries in preventing and combating threats to the rule of law, supporting justice sector reforms, improving integrity in the delivery of public services, public administration reform.

These grants complement the existing support available to these countries through enhanced technical assistance provided in conjunction with relevant partners, consultancies to support process design and facilitation, regular peer exchange and knowledge sharing activities (both on improving co-creation and on specific thematic policy areas), as well as small grants for coalition building, implementation support, and digital innovations in open government.

These grants will be managed by the OGP Support Unit. Contracts will be signed between the OGP Support Unit and the grantees. The grantees will be required to collaborate with the OGP Government Point of Contact (POC), civil society groups engaged in the OGP process, and/or the multi-stakeholder forum (MSF) during the implementation of activities related to these grants.

The main objective of these grants is to expand and strengthen civil society engagement and foster multi-stakeholder partnerships for tackling relevant open government reforms in active OGP member countries and locals in the Eastern Partnership region.

The grants will be used for one of the following purposes:

• to propose and implement catalytic approaches to open governance reforms and advocate for their inclusion as commitments in OGP action plans;
• to support co-implementation, monitoring and oversight of action plan commitments, ideally focusing on approaches that can be scalable across action plan cycles; or
• to promote, implement, and/or monitor open government reforms related to European integration processes.

The grants will also be used to explicitly expand the base of civil society and other non-governmental actors engaging with OGP in the EaP countries and locals. Strong preference will be given to ideas that engage new actors like the private sector, media, or youth groups.

OGP is seeking proposals for strengthening civil society engagement in OGP around the following policy areas:

• Anti-corruption
• Justice
• Public service delivery, including strengthening citizen participation and feedback mechanisms, or enhancing government responsiveness to users for improving public services
• Civic space and media freedoms
• Access to information
• Open governance and participation in post-war reconstruction and recovery
• Business integrity and ease of doing business
• Any other themes related to crisis response, recovery, or renewal

• The call for this category of grants will be open to registered civil society organisations and consortia from Armenia, Georgia, the Republic of Moldova and Ukraine. Preference will be given to multi-stakeholder teams. Cross-country partnerships are allowed.
• Applications are also welcome from organisations not engaged with OGP at this time. However, applicants should be willing to work closely with the OGP Support Unit, the country’s OGP Multi-Stakeholder Forum (Coordination Council) and the official Point of Contact. Applicants will also ideally engage the EU delegation in the country for relevant activities.
• Re-applications from former grantees are welcome, although preference will be given to organisations that have not been supported from the Open Door Grant before.
• Applicants should be willing to document and share their approaches, methodologies and outputs, and participate in OGP-organised peer exchange and learning events.

• Up to 25,000 EUR for 4-12 months of the implementation period. Note that funds will be disbursed through a cost-reimbursable grant scheme, and financial reports must be accompanied by 100% receipting. Note: Selected grantees will be asked to provide a roadmap of activities at the inception stage of the grant, a mid-term progress report, and a final report.
• Access to technical support from the OGP Support Unit and relevant partners.

Note, grantees will be able to use the award funds for:

• purchase, rental or leasing costs for equipment and supplies, including those needed for continuous work during the electricity cuts (provided that ownership is transferred at the end of the action when required);
• goods and contractual services for specialised tasks (translations, production of documents, external consultants time, accountancy, etc.);
• activities, including local travel, accommodation and subsistence costs, etc.;
• cost of staff assigned to the action;
• admin costs directly assigned to the action (supplies, rental of meeting rooms, etc.); 
• general admin costs (overhead costs) up to 7% of the total eligible direct costs for the action (maintenance, utility bills, office furniture, etc.).

These funds cannot be used for:

• costs that are not associated with the purpose of the grant;
• costs incurred outside of the grant implementation period (with the exception of costs related to final reports and audit certificates);
• costs already covered by another donor;
• personal expenses, such as clothing and toiletries;
• flight upgrades to first class;
• alcohol;
• currency exchange losses;
• debts and debt service charges (interest);
• provisions for losses or potential future liabilities;
• purchases of land or buildings, except where necessary for the direct implementation of the action;
• credits to third parties, unless otherwise specified in the special conditions; 
• salary costs of the personnel of national administrations, unless otherwise specified in the special conditions and only to the extent that they relate to the cost of activities which the relevant public authority would not carry out if the action were not undertaken;
• in kind contributions (except for volunteers’ work);
• performance-based bonuses included in costs of staff;
• deductible VAT.

• Clarity and relevance of the proposal in relation to the objectives and priority areas of this call
• A clear theory of change on how this one-off grant will positively impact the OGP process and plan in the country
• Approach to cross-sector collaboration and bringing in new voices and actors to expand the base of civil society engaging with OGP
• Value for money

Interested organisations must send completed application packages and any relevant supporting materials.

Application package templates:

• Application form
• Budget form

Completed applications should be emailed to eap@opengovpartnership.org. The proposals will be reviewed quarterly, with a deadline for application submissions at the end of each quarter (31 March 2023; 30 June 2023; 30 September 2023; 31 December 2023; etc.). Decisions will be communicated on a quarterly basis until the following quarter. Queries and applications should be submitted via email at eap@opengovpartnership.org. Please mention “Open Door Grants” in the subject line.

Learn about the organisations who have received a grant through our Open Door Grants initiative so far.

Civil Society Development Forum (Ukraine)

The Civil Society Development Forum is an expert organisation that supports participatory electronic democracy in Ukraine by building dialogue between government, community, and business through the effective use of civil participation tools, developing and implementing innovative digital applications, CivicTech solutions and training courses.

The project’s goal is to develop and implement a unique and innovative tool for policy development that can be fully implemented at local, national and global levels. 

Activities

The Civil Society Development Forum will create a toolkit to teach the principles of proper and effective participation in OGP based on the UChange gamification component of the CivicLab methodology. The methodology was developed by Civil Society Development Forum experts within the framework of the Council of Europe’s project “Promoting citizen participation in the democratic decision-making process in Ukraine”.

The Next Phase of Boon Talks: Politics and Policies in Armenia

Boon Scientific-Cultural Foundation will engage civil society organisations, experts, and public officials in open discussions on the challenges and opportunities across priority areas like public communication, e-procurement processes, and state and local participatory budgeting. 

Overall, the project aims to facilitate a constructive dialogue on issues of public importance to create improved and more effective public policies.

Activities

Boon will create two series of TV talks based on points identified in the discussions. The policies and politics series will invite policymakers and experts from respective fields to discuss the current reform agendas and challenges. The anthropology series will invite independent researchers to analyse the same topics from the social-cultural point of view. 

Fostering a Stronger Open Gov Process in Armenia

Armavir Development Center aims to enhance the quality of engagement and dialogue during action plan design, implementation, and monitoring and improve the overall design and ambition of the action plan. The project will focus on building awareness among ordinary citizens and other stakeholders (like civil society organisations and businesses), expanding evidence-based policy-making and advocacy, and creating opportunities for constructive public-private dialogue.

Activities

Armavir Development Center will develop policy papers, hold conferences for public-private dialogues and town hall meetings for tracking user insights, and organize other activities like media trainings.