1. Background and Purpose
We Effect is a development cooperation organisation founded in 1958 by the Swedish cooperative movement with the aim of fighting poverty. 70 Swedish cooperative and/or customer-owned companies and organisations are members of We Effect. We Effect’s mission is to enable people living in poverty to improve their living conditions, defend their rights and contribute to a just society. We Effect works in the thematic fields of sustainable rural development and adequate housing with a strong focus on women’s rights. The target groups for our development cooperation are our partner organisations and their existing and potential members.We Effect applies a rights-based approach. This means that our development activities are developed in dialogue with our partner organisations, with strong local ownership, characterised by accountability, transparency, non-discrimination, and meaningful participation. Our values are respect, transparency, and together.
We Effect works in more than 20 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. We Effect Southern Africa consists of four countries with programmes in Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Malawi. We employ around 50 members of staff and the regional budget for 2021 is approximately USD 14 million. We Effect endorsed a new strategy in 2020 with a focus on the right to food with a gender transformative, climate just and rights-based approach. In this new strategy We Effect reaffirms a commitment to working on addressing the root causes of the denial of the right to food including unjust and unequal national, regional, and global food systems; harmful gender norms that perpetuate inequalities and means that women often eat least, eat less, and eat last; and the impacts of climate change that significantly affects the agriculture sector and particularly women. Our current programming period is coming to an end in 2022. We Effect Southern Africa is inviting local civil society organisations to submit concept notes to be partner organisations for the new programming period, 2023 – 2027.
We Effect is interested in partnering with organisations working with a wide range of rightsholders in the agriculture and housing sectors. We Effect particularly wants to prioritise work with the most marginalized and excluded communities based on the
‘Agenda 2030’ principle of leaving no one behind and the cooperative principle of caring for the community.
Programmes and projects are mainly implemented though partnerships with local civil society organisations that are member-based organisations supporting communities and rightsholders working in the agriculture and housing sectors. However, We Effect also encourages applications from civil society organisations and specifically from smallholder farmer and women’s rights organisations.
2. Qualification Requirements
We Effect seeks to identify the following types of partners:
Core partners: These are local or national organisations working in one of We Effect’s countries in the region. These organisations will be supported in their core strategic work in the agriculture and/or housing sector. Core business could include both service delivery and lobbying and advocacy.
Technical partners: These are organisations with expertise in at least one of the following thematic areas: gender transformation, climate justice and rights-based approaches. These organisations would support core and strategic partners to strengthen their work in these areas. These partners are linked with three or four core partners to support them in the specific area of their expertise. Technical partners must therefore be operating within the We Effect countries of operation where the core partners work.
Strategic partners: This category is for organisations working at a regional level or striving to work at a regional level. We Effect would support your strategic work in agriculture and/or housing sector at a regional level. This is not limited to lobbying and advocacy but could also include development of key tools and/or resources to support a particular sector in two or more countries.
You should be operating in one of the following countries: Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique.
We Effect’s ambition is to decentralise to deepen our outreach and our support for organisations across all countries in which we are working. Organisations working at a national level or with decentralised offices and branches are strongly encouraged to
apply. International organisations are not eligible for funding under this call.
3. Applications
The application should be a maximum 3 pages and include the following information:
1. Organisational details including legal status and year of registration
2. Background and problem analysis (reason/s for establishing the organisation and intervention that you are applying for, an explanation of the problem and its root causes)
3. Experience of working in one or more of the following three areas: gender transformation, climate justice and human rights-based approach.
4. Experience of working with the most marginalised and excluded communities
5. Strategic areas of work in the agriculture or housing sector
6. Partnership type you are interested in and why (you can state more than one, but please justify each choice)
Applications should be sent by email to procurement.rosa@weeffect.org by 7th February 2022. Please indicate ‘Civil Society Partnership Concept Note’ in the subject line of the email.
We Effect will contact organisations with whom we would like to discuss or explore further.
Only successful shortlisted organisations will be contacted.
For the Q&A session on this, please register to participate in the meeting here.
