BACKGROUND

This Call for Proposals (CfP) is administered by the UNDP Digital, Inclusive, Accessible: Support to Digitalisation of Public Services in Ukraine (DIA Support Phase 2 Project), which is part of the UNDP Ukraine Democratic Governance Portfolio. 

DIA Support Phase 2 Project is implemented with funding provided by the Government of Sweden and in close cooperation with the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine (MDT). The three-year intervention builds on many years of UNDP Ukraine’s experience in two tracks: administrative service reform and re-engineering and digitalisation of processes in public administration – including through participatory methods of citizen and expert engagement. Also, this project is a new iteration of the DIA Support Project that was successfully implemented in 2021-2023 and has contributed to the development of 40 digital services and tools which were used by 21 million Ukrainians, significant capacity building of public servants, and strengthening capacity of the digital literacy hubs coordinators in pilot regions.

Diia is a nationally developed solution aimed to turn Ukraine into “the state in a smartphone”, making essential public services available to citizens and businesses online while promising a fundamental change to how people would interact with the public servants. The Diia ecosystem includes the Diia mobile application, Diia portal (an online portal for public services), Diia.Business, Diia.Education and other components. Within the DIA Support Project, UNDP assists its government counterparts, first and foremost MDT, to select wrap-around services that representatives of vulnerable groups face in life situations to enable the delivery of digitalised or digitally-enhanced, mobile-based solutions.

The DIA Support Phase 2 Project does not concentrate exclusively on the development of new, more convenient and citizen-centric electronic services, but also seeks to increase the availability of these services, both by developing technically accessible services and by expanding the circle of people who have sufficient digital skills to use electronic services.

Despite the roaring success of Diia, research suggests (https://bit.ly/digitlit2023) that Ukrainians still face barriers on their way to enjoy the simplicity and comfort of digitally transformed solutions. Only 38,0% of the adult population of Ukraine have above basic digital skills while 40,5% have no skills at all or low skills. 

Insufficient digital literacy skills become an additional barrier for Ukrainians during the full-scale war in Ukraine, that unfolded in 2022. With millions of people displaced, messengers and social media became the primary way of receiving urgent information and staying in touch with relatives. MDT has also launched several new electronic services in Diia, focused on humanitarian response: registering as IDPs, informing about the damaged or destroyed property, application for assistance to the entrepreneurs from the war-affected territories. Thus, digital literacy education is a matter of enhancing state humanitarian response on a level of accessibility of digital services. 

MDT within efforts to close the digital gap has previously set the ambitious goal of helping 6 million Ukrainians develop good digital competence by 2023 and has deployed several instruments for various groups of citizens. In particular, the platform Diia.Digital education was launched in 2019. It serves as the main portal where all educational materials are collected to increase digital literacy. As of today, it has over 2 million registered users, more than 170 educational courses on various aspects of digital competencies, designed for different age groups and categories of citizens, and 6 tests on digital literacy. 

In 2021, the national concept for the development of digital literacy (https://cutt.ly/mRKnh9m) was approved by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, and almost half of the regions have already created appropriate concepts with specific action plans. MDT has also adapted the Digi Comp 2.1 digital competency framework for citizens (https://bit.ly/3hf7CMY).

Importantly, MDT ensures offline access to the online courses on Diia.Education. People without digital skills or devices with internet access can study at the Hubs of Digital Education. Digital Education Hubs (DEHs/Hubs) are public and community places (libraries, schools, centres of state administrative services, IT-companies, CSO’s offices, even shops) that have registered themselves as Hubs (https://cutt.ly/NRKnJdx) and are willing to assist people in obtaining digital skills. To be verified they must have at least one device with access to the internet and at least one person who has completed the online course “Training for trainers” at Diia.Education platform. Before the full-scale war there were about 6,000 operating DEHs in the country but after the invasion started, this number significantly decreased – according to the 2023 estimations made by MDT, only 3,000 are still functioning and most of the DEHs currently are libraries. 

In 2022 UNDP has awarded a grant to All-Ukrainian Non-Government Organization Ukrainian Library Association who has developed a comprehensive methodological manual for the transformation of a typical public library into a Digital education hub. Also, UNDP support allowed to train 52 trainers representing regional training centres for librarians (RTC) from all regions who, in turn, have trained 235 DEH administrators from 12 oblasts. Those trained administrators conducted 135 educational events during the next three months and reached 2109 locals in their communities. This approach has proved to be working and effective but it has to be scaled up.

In the coming three years Phase 2 of the DIA Support project will be supporting the digitalisation in Ukraine by strengthening the Government’s capacities to deliver high-quality and accessible digital services to people from vulnerable groups. Digital solutions will address the complex challenges posed by the war, while ensuring transparency and accountability in the recovery process, which is critically important for Ukraine’s EU integration. And what is important in this regard is that the project will continue strengthening the capacities of libraries-Digital Literacy Hubs’ administrators to ensure that they are able to deliver effective digital literacy skills activities in line with the recommendations developed by the experts.

The DIA Support Phase 2 Project aims to achieve the following goals:

• Empowering Government Institutions: Equipping government bodies with the knowledge and skills needed to design and implement policies. These policies aim to digitalize services for citizens, aligning with the Human Rights Based Approach principles and incorporating gender mainstreaming.
• Creating Human-Centered Digital Services: Developing digital service packages that cater to real-life situations. These services are crafted in a participatory manner, ensuring they are gender-responsive at every step.
• Increasing Digital Literacy and Usage: Ensuring that Ukrainian citizens, both women and men, are well-informed about and are able to use the digital and mobile-based services available to them.

1. OBJECTIVES OF THE COMPETITION

The grant competition is aimed at conducting a series of trainings for administrators of the existing network of libraries-Digital Education Hubs, in order to increase offline access to digital skills acquisition by vulnerable groups, including the elderly, and people without their own devices with Internet access. Tasks of this initiative include: 

1. Training and enhancing the skills of librarians in digital literacy and the ability to teach library users digital skills.
2. Direct training of the representatives of vulnerable groups in digital skills, particularly in order to increase the ability to use electronic state services.
3. Establishing a channel of communication between the MDT and the target groups to test communication materials, service reengineering hypotheses, and receive feedback from digital skills receivers.

The proposals shall include/respond to the following considerations:

• The proposed approach should cover all Ukraine’s territories which are under governmental control;
• The process should offer a comprehensive solution and be generally in line with the Human Rights Based Approach (principles of “accountability”, “participation and inclusion”, “equality and non-discrimination”) and be mindful and inclusive of gender equality and equity;
  Considering the above objectives, the project should include the following elements:
• provision of expert and organizational support to training for librarians - coordinators of Digital Education Hubs (at least 800 people all over Ukraine, with their further commitment to conduct at least one digital literacy education event). The chosen civil society partner will be responsible for the organization of methodological, educational, informational content of this stage of the grant, while DIA Support Project takes the obligation to organize logistics of the training of the Hubs’ coordinators;
• Provide support to educational activities by the trained librarians in their Hubs (overall reach should be no less than 25,000 persons who have benefitted from DEH educational interventions by the end of the project).

As the result of the proposed initiative, Hubs will increase their capacity for educational activities in the field of digital literacy and creation of opportunities in the sphere of participatory and inclusive digital transformation. 

All relevant events and activities will need to be completed by 20 November 2024, and the maximum co-funding from UNDP shall not exceed 63’000 USD.

2. ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

The proposals coming in for the Project’s consideration will be initially measured against the admission criteria. To be considered for funding, the proposal must be submitted by an organisation that:

• has a status of a non-governmental public or charitable organisation or an association of CSOs officially registered in Ukraine;
• has a track record of active operation of at least five years;
• has a proven track record of cooperation with the international donor community, proper project implementation and reporting.

The CfP will not accept proposals from for-profit entities, political parties, state authorities, local governments, faith-based organisations or religious communities, as well as from private individuals and entrepreneurs.

The parameters that will determine whether a CSO is eligible to be considered for UNDP funding will be assessed on the Capacity Assessment Checklist (CACHE) presented in Annex 5. In case of a coalition-based application, only the core applicant will be verified against CACHE.

3. BUDGET AND ELIGIBLE COSTS

Eligible costs must:

• be necessary for carrying out the project activities;
• have been incurred by the applicant during the implementation period;
• comply with the principles of sound financial management, in particular, value for money and cost-effectiveness;
• be adequately recorded, identifiable and verifiable, and be backed by original supporting documents.

Grant costs may only be used to cover the following expenses:

• staff salaries and expert fees;
• communication and information services;
• purchase of consultative services and contracts if these are essential to project goals and objectives;
• renting, catering, and other services envisaged by the project activities;
• printing and copying;
• utility services;
• consumables and supplies;
• travel costs (if travel complies with internal UNDP regulations);

Not more than 10% of the grant funds may be spent for purchasing equipment, provided a clear justification is offered as to its need to achieve project goals.

The following costs are ineligible:

• costs of project proposal preparation;
• academic research;
• debts;
• currency exchange losses.

4. SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

All applications must be received by UNDP no later than 15 March 2024 by 23:59. Applications arriving after the indicated deadline shall not be considered. Please, do not send attachments exceeding 10 Mb. If the application attachments exceed this size, break the archive up into several parts of under 10 Mb each and indicate accordingly in the e-mail subject (e.g. “Application part 1 of X”).

All applications and supporting materials should be sent to grants.ua@undp.org, specifying in the subject line “DIA Support Phase 2 Project: Digital Education Hubs Development CfP”.

Please note that UNDP does not send automated replies to your submission (including automated “read receipts” or “delivery receipts”) and does not control what e-mail server responses are sent to the applicants, should they request such automated receipts.

Please expect to receive a human-generated written confirmation from the DIA Support Phase 2 Project. If you receive no such confirmation by 19 March 2024, please contact Mykola Yabchenko, DIA Support Digital Literacy Officer, at mykola.yabchenko@undp.org.

Comments on the quality of the proposal are not provided. By submitting materials to UNDP for the competition, the applicant grants UNDP the permission to process personal data contained in resumes/CVs or other parts of the application form for the purposes of the grant competition and potential reference checks.

5. SELECTION PROCESS

Upon completing the pre-screening process (done by the DIA Support Phase 2 Project team), the Selection Committee shall convene and assess those applications that meet the minimum criteria against the following evaluation matrix (Grant Selection Criteria):

6. MONITORING, EVALUATION AND REPORTING

The Grantee will be responsible for monitoring the project’s activities and evaluating their outcomes. UNDP will monitor the project through Grantee reports, online consultations, site visits, meetings with project personnel and stakeholders and participation in the project events.

The Grantee shall submit the following reports according to the UNDP format (to be provided):

• Brief interim reports, including description of activities, results, and agreed monitoring indicators, as well as financial reports – depending on the length of the project proposed (to be specified in the relevant Low Value Grant Agreement);
•  Brief reports on demand occasionally requested by UNDP DIA Support in cases when information on progress is required in-between reporting periods;

The Final (Completion) report, including a summary of activities and results as well as the financial report for the total duration of the agreement.

Attachment

APPLICATION FORM and BUDGET – TEMPLATES