USAID’s Vuka Now: Combating Wildlife Crime in Southern Africa Activity, implemented by Chemonics International, is seeking concept papers for implementation of activities designed to address a multi-faceted program to advance more effective and inclusive policy improvements in key policy areas. The grants will be awarded and implemented in accordance with USAID and U.S. Government regulations governing grants under contracts and USAID’s Vuka Now internal grant management policies.                       

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

IA.       OBJECTIVE 

USAID’s Vuka Now is awarding grants to local or regional not-for-profit and for-profit NGOs, associations, and firms legally registered and recognized under the laws of a South African Development Community (SADC) member country. The objective of grant activities awarded through this APS is to contribute to coordination of learning from multiple landscape-based combating wildlife crime activities awarded by USAID and to support strategic regional activities that are necessary to address the wildlife crime challenges that fall outside any discreet landscape. 

IB.       BACKGROUND 

USAID’s Vuka Now is a four-year activity (with one option year) financed by USAID and implemented by Chemonics International. The activity started in March 2018 and is currently anticipated to end in March 2022. The goal of the project is to dramatically decrease wildlife crime across Southern Africa. To achieve this purpose, UVN has two main objectives:

• Catalyze learning and sharing for improved results to combat wildlife crime.
• Increase collaborative action to reduce wildlife crime in targeted areas.

Addressing wildlife trafficking is necessary and relevant for generating prosperity and expanding development efforts within the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) region.
 
Wildlife trafficking is a multi-billion-dollar illicit business that is decimating Africa’s iconic animal populations. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) African Elephant Status Report (2016), the African elephant population has declined by a significant amount primarily due to poaching, while more than 5,000 African rhinos have been killed since 2008. Wildlife crime undermines the economic prosperity of countries and communities, it threatens their natural capital and undermines sustainable economic development, including development benefits derived from legal nature-based enterprises like tourism. Wildlife crime threatens social stability and cohesion and impoverishes citizens as their cultural and natural heritage is robbed. Natural resource-dependent communities are exposed to security threats and erosion of their livelihoods. Between 40% and 85% of Southern African Development Community (SADC) citizens live in rural areas where they depend on natural resources for survival. The region has a rich natural heritage of global significance, including some of the planet’s largest intact populations of rhinos and elephants. Natural resources are vitally important to the economy of the region and its growth. Approximately US$3.2 billion was generated from nature-based tourism by 10 of the 14 SADC countries in 2000/2001. The decimation of wildlife species and destruction of natural ecosystems threatens this prosperous development sector and livelihood security. Organized criminal networks also threaten the peace and security of the SADC region.
 
Law enforcement alone will not sufficiently or effectively address wildlife crime. Enforcement actions must be coupled carefully with actions that incentivize positive relationships with wildlife resources. Activities must shift the responsibility and benefits from wildlife to local communities to ensure active stewardship. Local communities are widely perceived as the first line of defense against wildlife crime. More strategic approaches are necessary to ensure that such community interventions are indeed shifting the balance to motivate positive behaviors and resulting in decreased wildlife crime.
 
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and other partners have developed a
Theory of Change for communities as first line of defense. The theory argues that as communities strengthen wildlife stewardship, derive increased benefits from wildlife, and pride in their wildlife grows, they will become less likely to engage in poaching and more likely to report offenders. Collaboration with communities is critical to preventing poaching. There is a need to increase the motivation and capacity of communities to work with (rather than against) law enforcement agencies; to inform and contribute to strengthening disincentives (social and legal) for illegal behavior; to increase incentives for stewardship and pride in wildlife; and to decrease costs of living with wildlife. 

IC. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION

Grant activities funded by USAID’s Vuka Now must meet the following general criteria.

• Grants must promote the overall goal of USAID’s Vuka Now (UVN) and further one or more of the specific objectives of UVN, as described above in Section IB.
• Execution of grant activities must take place in Southern Africa (in one or more areas of UVN’s geographic focus).
• Grant activities shall be results-oriented or performance-based, emphasizing achieving results that are relevant and technically sound; show a clear relationship between tasks, milestones, and payment; contain verifiable results; and be measured by means of verifiable indicators.
• Grant activities may be related to an organization’s primary objective or may be related to a special function of an organization that is otherwise largely dedicated to other objectives.
• Grants will cover only necessary and allowable costs linked to the execution of the activity, such as program staff salaries, consultant fees, training, meetings and seminars, publications, purchase and/or rental of equipment, office and travel expenses, and other direct costs. The specific costs to be funded must conform to the USAID guidelines for funding activities.
• Should it be deemed necessary by UVN, grants will also cover costs of activities associated with mitigating the environmental impact of grant activities.
• To reflect their commitment to the activity, applicants are encouraged to consider a meaningful grantee contribution (cash or monetized in-kind services or equipment provided by the grantee) as a contribution to the overall cost of a grant. UVN also encourages applicants to consider leveraging third-party resources to support the proposed activity.

The following are illustrative activities that will be considered for grant funding under USAID’s Vuka Now. Other innovations and activities are equally welcome.

• Research, workshops, seminars, networking, training, information sharing, study tours (as appropriate), and technical assistance
• Activities that help create and promote opportunities for inclusion of women and other marginalized groups in utilizing and protecting natural resources
• Activities that increase understanding of the dynamics of and ways to disrupt wildlife crime, including specific trafficking routes in the region
• Activities that increase understanding of the potential and real impacts of trade restrictions and other policy initiatives on wildlife and wildlife crime in the region, including means to enhance positive or mitigate negative impacts
• Activities that improve abilities to monitor impacts of wildlife crime interventions, or that improve abilities to address the political economic, and social drivers of wildlife crime
• Activities that increase transboundary and regional collaboration to combat wildlife crime, including the strengthening of capacity in key functions that serve to combat wildlife crime
• Activities that improve transparency and reporting on wildlife crime, and that increase use of actionable information that deters wildlife crime
• Activities that increase sharing of information that results in effective detection and prosecution for wildlife crime
• Assessments of pilot interventions
• Capacity building activities
• In-kind procurements for jumpstarting small-scale enterprises to combat wildlife crime
• Other activities that promote UVN objectives

For the full Annual Program Statement containing the application instructions and the associated documents, please follow the DropBox link below:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/uft7omggisoatt5/AAAtIaumDzWdwtBVE51Hh0_va?dl=0
 
USAID’s Vuka Now and Chemonics employees may not ask for, and applicants are prohibited from offering, any money, fee, commission, credit, gift, gratuity, thing of value, or compensation to obtain or reward improper favorable treatment regarding this solicitation. Any improper request from a project employee should be reported to the chief of party or BusinessConduct[at]chemonics[dot]com