Summary
Date Posted: Thursday, July 29, 2021 , Base Salary: Not Disclosed

JOB DETAILS:
Voices for Just Climate Action Programme | Call for proposals for media and digital activism partner
Issuance date: Wednesday, 28th July 2021
Deadline for submission of Proposals: Tuesday, 10th August 2021
Funding Type: Sub-grant

Background
Hivos is an international development organization guided by humanist values. Together with citizens and their organizations, we aim to contribute towards just, inclusive and life-sustaining societies where people have equal access to opportunities, rights and resources. We work in partnership with others in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America on three impact areas: civic rights; gender equality, diversity and inclusion and climate justice. Our approach is solution driven, and we build wider movements for change by amplifying and connecting voices.

SouthSouthNorth (SSN) supports national, regional and local responses to climate change through policy and knowledge interventions, partnerships and deep collaboration. We do this by connecting people and information, enhancing capability and mobilising resources to respond innovatively to the challenges and opportunities that climate change presents.

Hivos and SSN, alongside other consortium partners – WWF Zambia, Akina Mama wa Afrika (AMwA) and Slum Dwellers International (SDI) – are implementing the Voices for Just Climate Action (VCA) programme. VCA is a five-year (2021-2025) lobby and advocacy programme supported by the Dutch government under the “Power of Voices” framework to scale up Zambia climate action response targeting vulnerable communities. The programme aims to ensure that by 2025, local civil society and underrepresented groups will have taken on a central role as creators, facilitators and advocates of innovative and inclusive climate solutions. Their inclusion is crucial for effective and lasting climate responses. It is also crucial, and because the climate crisis is also a societal challenge with ethical and human rights aspects occurring alongside a number of inequalities based on gender, socioeconomic class, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability and age.

The overall approach of the Programme is to work with civil society to build widespread societal support for locally-shaped climate solutions through an inclusive and rights-based approach. This includes building a broad-based climate alliance at country level, bridging divides (urban-rural, gender, youth) that amplifies voices in new unusual ways. In addition, it will influence national and global policies and financial flows (e.g. climate finance, private sector investments) in support of these locally-shaped solutions.

Climate Justice Approach
The VCA Programme recognizes that climate change is not only an environmental problem but also a societal challenge that brings in ethical and human rights issues. Climate change is essentially a human rights issue because it affects the enjoyment of indivisible, interdependent and interrelated human rights. Hitting the most vulnerable the hardest, climate change threatens to increase existing inequalities between the rich and poor, ethnicities, sexes, generations and communities. It undermines democracy and threatens the economy and sustainable development at large. Likewise, by far the greatest burden falls on those already in poverty and on marginalised groups such as Indigenous peoples and traditional communities, the rural and urban poor, women and youth, although they are the least responsible for climate change. Through a climate justice approach, the Programme intends to foster an expanded civic space where civil society voices, in particular those of vulnerable people, are heard on climate action.

Vision: A Zambia where civil society is heard & respected by influencing & co-creating locally relevant, inclusive and fundable climate solutions that deliver real benefits to people & nature as part of a local & global response to this crisis.

Target Groups: The target group of the VCA intervention in Zambia is centered around those who are most vulnerable to climate change impacts: women, youth, urban poor, rural communities, indigenous groups and marginalized groups. These underrepresented groups often have critical perspectives on power structures and alternative approaches to the climate crisis.

Geographic Focus: VCA will operate in ten districts in the Lower Kafue Basin and Lusaka Province regions (Luangwa, Rufunsa, Chongwe, Lusaka, Kafue, Chirundu, Siavonga, Chikankata, Mazabuka and Itezhi Tezhi). The contracting organizations are seeking cross-regional partners who can engage in up to 10 districts and nationally.

Thematic Areas: VCA will target five key thematic areas; water, food, energy, health and gender in relation to climate change.
● Food system
Innovative food system approaches to improve access to sustainable, diverse, and nutritious food and ensure food security. Sustainable agriculture which addresses the threat to livelihoods and food and nutrition security through crop failures resulting from climate impacts
● Energy
Strengthening energy security of Zambians in the face of energy shortages as hydroelectric power is exposed to the variability of rainy seasons. Addressing the unsustainable use of natural resources resulting in deforestation as the rural and urban poor continue to depend on wood fuel for energy
● Water
Strengthening the resilience of natural freshwater and critical human water systems to reduce risks for communities facing high water stress, inadequate water quality, and impacted by floods and droughts
● Health
Strengthening the capacity of urban poor communities to cope with climate-related hazards resulting from poor access to sanitation and drinking water, inadequate solid waste management and insufficient infrastructure for water and sanitation which leads to disease outbreaks, particularly during flooding episodes
● Gender
Strengthening the feminist and transformational leadership capacity of CSOs, women’s networks and youth groups to amplify their voices for inclusive, rights based and just climate transition. Recognizing that the socio-economic and political challenges that communities face are interlinked and therefore, that the solutions to emerging challenges such as the climate crisis require an intersectional approach for the overall scaling of climate solutions, especially for women.

These thematic areas will thus form the basis of the VCA climate action which is focused on advocacy while emphasizing a rights-based and intersectionality approach to amplify civil society voices in climate action. The contracted partners must be able to work across the VCA themes.

Call for Proposals
Hivos and SSN seek to partner with a Zambian organization aligned with the goals of the VCA Programme which is active in and has experience in influencing and digital activism. The partner will work towards increasing stories of inspiring climate action in the media, and more citizen stories being amplified for the public. Of key interest are initiatives which are aimed at strengthening data-savvy and digital activism, which contributes to increased awareness and active citizenship by enabling the mobilization of local voices through innovative digital strategies. Strategies for digital activism must outline ideas to include grassroot voices with limited digital access. The grant will also be used to build up constituency around climate action. This will include articulation with journalists, artists and influencers at local, regional and national level that cover socio-environment and human rights issues.

Your organization should have experience in facilitating storytelling sessions with communities and citizens with tangible outputs, and/or experience implementing media trainings and fellowships, as well as using stories for influencing at local and national level. Skills in knowledge management and brokering, as well as links to key stakeholder networks to support Programme activities and engagement will also be of particular value to the Programme partners.

Who is Eligible to Apply?
• Locally registered media organizations or CSOs with significant media expertise and experience
• Coalitions and networks with at least one locally registered media organization with sufficient operational and financial management experience. If applying as a coalition, one organization must be designated the lead in the application.
• Applicant with a clean human rights record
• Applicant with experience in facilitating storytelling sessions with communities and citizens
• Applicants with experience in using digital activism for local and national level advocacy
• It will be considered favorable if the coalitions/organizations:
• Have prior experience carrying out media activism and storytelling around issues of climate change especially in relation to the food system and clean energy
• Has experience in working with grassroot populations and marginalized groups including but not limited to indigenous people, women and girls, youth, and people with disabilities
• Have experience working with journalists, artists and influencers at local, regional and national level

Note: Grants will be awarded separately by respective contracting organizations (Hivos and SSN) directly to selected partners. Either organization may contact you should they be interested in your proposal.

Grant Duration: This grant will last for approximately 16 months from August 2021 to November 2022.

Education Requirement: No Requirements

Job Experience: No Requirements

Work Hours: 8

{module 312}

Job application procedure
Application deadline is 10 August 2021 (23:59 CAT)
To apply, kindly request application templates from tmatenga@hivos.org and wchilufya@hivos.org
For further information, questions or clarifications, please contact tmatenga@hivos.org

All Jobs

QUICK ALERT SUBSCRIPTION

{module 316}