RFPs: Collaboration Lab for Bangladeshi Media & Civil Society

The Collaboration Lab is a small grants project for alliances of Bangladeshi media and civil society organisations (CSOs). It aims to promote collaboration on issues that are important and relevant to Bangladeshi citizens, stimulate the development of innovative solutions and facilitate knowledge exchange and mutual learning.

CSOs play an essential role in society, as they are an important source of information for citizens and decision makers. They monitor policies and actions that impact civilians and promote accountability. They engage in advocacy and offer recommendations for sustainable solutions. They deliver essential services, defend human rights and work to create social change where needed.

The media can promote transparency and accountability by reporting on current events. They can act as a watchdog by exposing corruption and abuse. Journalists who provide accurate, balanced and timely information that is of public interest and relevance make an essential contribution to informed decision making.

CSOs can share important knowledge, research and expertise with the media, and their activities can provide journalists with the opportunity to make abstract issues concrete and newsworthy. Media can generate awareness on CSO topics through its publications, which engage citizens across geographies and political lines.

Thematic Areas

• In line with Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions), the proposed initiative should address at least one of these five thematic areas:
  • Accountability: covering transparency, corruption and illicit finance.
  • Information: covering access to information, freedom of expression, right to information.
  • Inclusion: covering inclusive participation of women and girls, youth, LGBTQIA+ community, people with disabilities and ethnic minority / indigenous groups.
  • Digital: covering defending digital and civic spaces, combating disinformation. Alliances must consist of at least one media organisation and one CSO. One organisation will apply as the ‘lead’ organisation, responsible for signing the subgrant with Free Press Unlimited and ARTICLE19 and the overall management of the subgrant. The other organisation(s) will act as the co-applicant(s). Organisations that have participated as leads in a previous round of the project can only apply as coapplicants in a next round. Applicants eligible for financial support must be non-profit or profit-making entities that can include media outlets, NGOs, CSOs, or media development organisation, and must be established and registered in Bangladesh.
  • Safety: covering safety of journalists, violence against women and children, human trafficking or extrajudicial killings.

Funding Information

• A selection committee will then assess the proposals and select around 5 alliances to receive a grant of maximum of 60,000 EUR.

Eligibility Criteria

• Alliances must consist of at least one media organisation and one CSO. One organisation will apply as the ‘lead’ organisation, responsible for signing the subgrant with Free Press Unlimited and ARTICLE19 and the overall management of the subgrant. The other organisation(s) will act as the co-applicant(s). Organisations that have participated as leads in a previous round of the project can only apply as coapplicants in a next round.
• Applicants eligible for financial support must be non-profit or profit-making entities that can include media outlets, NGOs, CSOs, or media development organisation, and must be established and registered in Bangladesh.

Selection Criteria

• To determine which initiatives are feasible, relevant and reflect good collaborative potential, a Selection Committee will assess the proposals based on the following aspects:
  • Relevance and innovative nature of the proposal (out-of-the-box thinking, new ideas, new alliances);
  • Diversity and ability to reach under-served audiences and marginalised groups;
  • Project design and feasibility (clear set of success and performance indicators, timeline, risk analysis, realistic cost-effective budget, etc.);
  • Impact and sustainability (measurable change on civil society, media sector or broader society);
  • Management capacity (to effectively incorporate the proposed initiative) of applying organisations, including monitoring and evaluation capacity.

For more information, visit Free Press Unlimited.