Promote Human Rights, Fundamental Freedoms, and Good Governance in Mauritania

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A.1 Background The U.S. Department of State, U.S. Embassy Nouakchott, announces an Open Competition for organizations interested in submitting full applications for projects that promote human rights, fundamental freedoms, and good governance in Mauritania. U.S. Embassy Nouakchott invites organizations interested in potential funding for such projects to submit proposals outlining program concepts that reflect these goals. Please carefully follow all instructions below. A.2 Goals Improve the human rights environment and inject critical capacity building efforts to promote good governance and inclusive political participation in the lead up to the municipal and legislative elections in 2023 and the presidential election in 2024. Proposed programs should be designed to achieve at least one the following outcomes: Objective 1: Improve protection of human rights and dignity, including efforts to combat slavery and gender-based violence in Mauritania. Objective 2: Promote good governance through fighting corruption – including related to management of natural resources. Objective 3: Promote political inclusion through active participation of women, youth, and marginalized communities in both the municipal and legislative elections in 2023 and the presidential election in 2024, and provision of technical assistance to the National Electoral Independent Commission (CENI) to ensure implementation of free and fair elections. A.3 Expected Results Specific results could include the following: Provide skills to civil society organizations, human rights defenders, and community members to more successfully advocate for reform and to provide services to victims of human rights violations. Increase the level of political participation by women, youth, and marginalized communities. Increase the capacity of the CENI to facilitate free and fair elections, which will in turn allow the public to have more confidence in the electoral system. Discourage corrupt practices on the part of authorities. A.4 Main Activities Proposed programs should consist of activities such as workshops, campaigns, and technical fora to support both the Government of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (GIRM) and civil society in protecting human rights and promoting good governance. Programs would aim to deliver one or more of the following: Tangible human rights outcomes such as improving access of victims of slavery and their children to civil registration documentation without which they cannot exercise their full rights as citizens of Mauritania. Improvement of overall governance through facilitation of increased political participation by women, girls, and marginalized communities. Promotion and curbing of corruption through awareness raising efforts. Technical support to the CENI to improve the capacity of this key institution to hold free and fair and transparent elections that Mauritanians can increasingly trust. To achieve the goals and expected results, the program should include one or more of the following activities/suggested actions here: Objective 1: Improve protection of rights and dignity by supporting human rights, including efforts to combat slavery and gender-based violence in Mauritania. Improve the delivery of tangible human rights outcomes by designing and implementing anti-slavery activities such as addressing awareness on the lack of access of victims of slavery and their children to civil registration, promote access to civil registration documents, working with the GIRM to facilitate such access, and scaling up those efforts to reach wider local, regional, and national actors. Promote efforts to fight gender-based violence, especially violence against young girls and women, and improve the capacity of human rights activists to effectively do so. These efforts may be coordinated with the Ministry of Social Affairs’ Observatory for the Rights of Women and Girls (ONDFF) and appropriate United Nations agencies. Objective 2: Promote good governance through fighting corruption – including management of natural resources. Strengthen democratic governance and fight corruption by enlisting support from civil society organizations to design and implement tailored focus groups, training, workshops, and delivery of capacity-building efforts – including press – to reach as many Mauritanians as possible. Efforts should help to raise awareness on natural resource depletion, improve understanding of resource monitoring and verification tools by CSOs and other appropriate actors, and/or build an educated citizenry to counter corruption, including in the management of natural resources. Objective 3: Promote political inclusion through active participation of women and youth in municipal and legislative elections and provision of technical assistance to the National Electoral Independent Commission (CENI) to ensure implementation of free and fair and transparent municipal and legislative elections. Provide technical assistance to the CENI to ensure free and fair and transparent elections, to deliver needed training, capacity-building, supplies and equipment to ensure smooth implementation of municipal and legislative elections. A.5 Performance Indicators All projects should aim to have impact that leads to improving human rights, fundamental freedoms, and good governance. (At least one of the following required performance indicators must be included in this section and in the Statement of Work (SOW).) Number of election officials trained with U.S. Government (USG) assistance Number of individuals receiving voter education through USG-assisted programs Number of USG-assisted civil society organizations (CSOs) that participate in legislative proceedings and/or engage in advocacy with national legislature and its committees Number of USG supported national human rights commissions and other independent state institutions charged by law with protecting and promoting human rights that actively pursued allegations of human rights abuses during the year.

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