The Global Partnership for Social Accountability (GPSA) was created in 2012 and aimed to support civil society participation, transparency and accountability in public policy making. The GPSA further seeks to create enabling environments for broad stakeholder participation and provides strategic and financial support to civil society organizations (CSOs) and to governments for social accountability initiatives. The decisionmaking body of the GPSA is its Steering Group, consisting of ten members who represent the World Bank, recipient and donor countries, and CSOs.

By the end of 2017, the Multi-Donor-Trust Fund of GPSA, included ten state- and non-state donors, with the World Bank itself as the biggest donor (providing USD 20 million out of approximately USD 39 million). By February 2018, the GPSA had supported 33 projects in 25 countries.

Eligibility to Receive Funding

There are grants available for actors located in any of the 52 countries that have opted-in to the GPSA. The list of eligible countries can be found online.

Regional Focus: The GPSA has no specific regional focus.

Sector Focus

GPSA grants are intended to support CSO projects that address critical governance and development problems through social accountability processes, including climate policies. Proposals to the GPSA must address the priority themes that have been identified per country. These priorities can be found on the GPSA website.

Funding Conditions

NGOs from eligible countries have to fulfil the following criteria:

• Have legal status in any of the GPSA eligible countries. The applying CSO is required to provide a copy of its legal status in the country, including the type of CSO it is and the year that it was established;
• Have an external audit report;
• Have a bank account in the country where the CSO has a legal status, and be authorized to receive grant funding directly from the World Bank;
• Have a representative with the legal authority who will sign the grant contract with the World Bank;
• Have a proven track record. The lead applicant must provide evidence of its experience (at least 3-5 years) in the area of the call for proposals, and a vision that matches the goals of the GPSA. To this end, applicants must provide (a) information about previous or ongoing projects related to the field of transparency, accountability and civic engagement, and (b) three reference persons who can provide information about the CSO’s performance.

Application Procedure

Applications can only be submitted in response to annual calls for proposals. The 2018 call for proposal will be the 4 ^th call. Grant amounts can range anywhere from less than USD 400,000 to USD 800,000.

Grant applications are to be submitted by the lead applicant CSO. The GPSA encourages applicant CSOs to partner with other CSOs. However, only the main applicant CSO would be the recipient of GPSA grant funding and thus, would carry the fiduciary responsibility.

Applications should be submitted online at: www. worldbank.org/gpsa.

Contact

The World Bank

1818  H Street, NW Washington, DC 20433 USA

Tel: +1 202 473 1000

Website: http://www.thegpsa.org/sa/