| Overview : The present Country Programme (2013-2015) of UNDP in Myanmar comprises of 3 pillars, namely: Pillar 1 – Local Governance; Pillar 2 – Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Disaster Risk Reduction; and Pillar 3 – Democratic Governance and Development Effectiveness. There are 5 outputs envisaged under the Pillar 1 (Local Governance) namely: output 1 – strengthened institutional capacity of local government; output 2&3 – strengthened institutional capacity of civil society organizations and local media institutions; output 4 – strengthened institutional capacity of micro-finance service-providers and output 5 – improved livelihoods and social cohesion.
UNDP, during the implementation of Human Development Initiative (HDI) programme for over two decades had focused predominantly on livelihoods and food security activities through the formation and mobilization of community based organizations (CBOs) including Self Reliance Groups [1]. By the end of HDI in Dec 2012, over 8,000 villages in 63 townships across Myanmar received assistance and 5,503 SRGs were formed and supported with accrued membership of about 78,000.
During the HDI transition phase (November 2012 – September 2013), UNDP promoted a concept of federating SRGs with 3-tiered federated approach to ensure the sustainability of such groups. First step was that the grassroots level SRGs federated at the cluster level, thus forming Cluster Leading Groups (CLG). The second step was the further agglomeration of CLGs in to Township Leading Groups (TLGs). The TLGs principally serve as the apex of a 3-tiered institutional model. As a result, 56% (3,100 out of 5,503) of these SRGs undertook concrete steps to consolidate and continue their activities, leading to the formation of 112 Cluster Leading Groups (CLGs) and 28 Township Leading Groups (TLGs). Though initially, 28 TLGs were fostered, two TLGs have since collapsed and further five new TLGs were formed. As of early Aug 2014, over 22,000 women members are directly participating and benefiting from 1,979 SRGs which are federated into 112 CLGs and 31 TLGs in 8 Regions/States of Myanmar (Annex 1). Additional steps were taken by some SRGs to register themselves with the Cooperatives Department of the government; hence there are now 167 Cooperative Societies.
While the HDI focused on direct service delivery to the grassroots and community levels, the present Country Programme is more targeted at policy development, creating dialogue spaces amongst stakeholders and building capacity at all levels of the government, and also of the Civil Society Organizations (CSO). In this context, the SRG-based TLGs will potentially have a critical role in terms of UNDP’s support to CSOs. Accordingly, the UNDP’s proposed support will focus on institutional capacity building of their parent organization, i.e. the TLGs, this means that while UNDP will not necessarily engage in the same manner as it did under the HDI, but focus more and align its support within its overall programme framework.
Against this background, through this Call for Proposal (CFP), UNDP Myanmar wishes to support the existing TLGs for strengthening their capacity through Institutional Support Grant mechanism and seek a separate proposal from each interested and eligible TLG in order to avail such grant.
The deadline for submission of proposal is 17:00 hrs, Tuesday 7 October 2014.
[1] SRG, on average, comprise of 10-15 women members living in a close proximity and having close affinity.
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