Quarterly Progress Report QPR-014 Marginalized Populations Support Activity in Bosnia and Herzegovina Contract No. AID-168-I-15-00001 October 2018 1 This publication was produced by the Contractor for review by the United States Agency for International Development. QUARTERLY PROGRESS REPORT MARGINALIZED POPULATIONS SUPPORT ACTIVITY IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (USAID/PPMG) Report No. QPR #014 October 2018 Contract No.: AID-168-I-15-00001 Task Orders: AID-168-TO-15-00001 AID-168-TO-15-00002 AID-168-TO-15-00003 AID-168-TO-15-00011 AID-168-TO-15-00012 AID-168-TO-16-00001 AID-168-TO-17-00001 AID-168-TO-17-00002 72016818F00001 72016818F00002 The author’s views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of the United States Agency for International Development or the United States Government. 2 CONTENTS 1. DOCUMENT REVISIONS 4 2. Acronyms 5 3. Executive Summary 6 3.1. Project Background 6 4. Activity highlights 7 5. Interventions and Achievements 9 5.1. Task Order: AID-168-I-15-00001 9 5.5. Task Order: AID-168-I-15-00005 24 6. FINANCIAL REPORT 28 3 1. DOCUMENT REVISIONS Version Date Person Comment 4 2. ACRONYMS CO Contracting Officer COR Contracting Officer’s Representative OCA Organizational Capacity Assessment PPMG Marginalized Populations Support Activity QFP Quarterly Financial Report QPR Quarterly Progress Report SOW Statement of Work TO Task Order USAID U.S. Agency for International Development 5 3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3.1. PROJECT BACKGROUND Total Funding: $4,999,000 million Period of Performance: February 2015 – February 2022 Implementing Partner: Institute for Youth Development KULT Approved Subcontractor: NGO & Business Audit d.o.o. The Challenge While the international community has long supported activities that facilitate the inclusion of marginalized populations in civic and political decision making in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), these groups are often overlooked or ignored by the BiH Government. As a result, many citizens – youth, women, religious minorities, Romani, disabled persons, minority returnees and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) persons – remain unheard and excluded from mainstream social, cultural, economic and political life. Youth are disaffected. Romani, largely disenfranchised, are excluded from decision-making processes, while most cannot get the skills or training they need to join the labor market. Persons with disabilities are marginalized from early childhood. Many are institutionalized and lack access to basic education in mainstream schools. Women’s participation in political and public life is extremely low. BiH society continues to abhor the idea of homosexuality and most institutions ignore discrimination or violent acts against LGBT persons. In fear for their physical safety, most of them stay hidden from the public sphere, and, as a result, LGBT activism is weak. A new marginalized group emerged in the aftermath of the 2014 floods, when 40,000 people were displaced. Assistance is still needed to provide economic and social stability to help flood-affected citizens from the most marginalized groups rebuild their lives. Our Activity USAID’s Marginalized Populations Support Activity supports activities of local organizations that advocate for the rights, empowerment and dignity of underrepresented groups of BiH society, and builds the capacity of local NGOs, BiH institutions and USAID implementing partners to do so. Providing underrepresented groups with opportunities to participate in civic and political issues, through their engagement in civil society organizations, will ensure that the government recognizes them as necessary and respectable partners in policy development. Implementation and Expected Results The Activity provides grants to local organizations that promote the rights and dignity of marginalized populations and to enhance their performance and management capacity through formal classroom training, mentorship and one-on-one coaching. Training topics include legal structures, financial management, human resources, internal control systems, project performance management, procurement systems, organizational sustainability, and monitoring and evaluation. The Activity also builds the capacity of USAID partners, institutions and government leaders to promote and protect the rights of these underrepresented citizens. A component of the Activity is designed to respond flexibly and swiftly to public demand for humanitarian and other material assistance. By the end of the project’s life, the activity will: ● Strengthen the performance of at least 40 BiH NGOs and other organizations, including associations, civil society organizations, BiH institutions, and small and medium-sized enterprises; ● Enhance the performance of at least 75 current USAID local partners, to enhance their performance and management capacity through group trainings; and ● Build the expertise of at least 75 BiH government leaders of municipalities and ministries collaborating with USAID. 6 4. ACTIVITY HIGHLIGHTS Particularly noteworthy activities during the July-September 2018 reporting period were conducted by the Association “EDUS - Education for All”, Alliance of Paraplegics and Persons With Poliomyelitis of FBiH and the Rock School from Mostar. 4.1. Grant Awarded to Sarajevo Open Centre (SOC) By September, 2018, PPMG awarded the 3rd grant for LGBTI issues to the Association “Sarajevo Open Centre” for the project “Strategic approaches for LGBTI rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina”. This is 15-month project, and SOC will provide 2 subgrants to local CSOs dealing with LGBTI issues in Tuzla and Prijedor (Tuzla Open Centre and Youth Center KVART). SOC will work on maintaining their unique LGBTI web portal lgbti.ba, improving their organizational ability to influence and interact with relevant stakeholders for achieving strategic objectives, and campaign related to strategic litigation cases. SOC will continue building the movement and empowering the LGBTI community in BiH through: maintaining their unique LGBTI web portal lgbti.ba, improving organizational abilities to influence and interact with relevant stakeholders (meetings, campaign and info sessions with opinion makers) for achieving changes in strategic documents and the society, sub-granting and capacity development of local partners advocating for LGBTI rights in two regions in B&H, mentoring new LGBTI activists. The www.lgbti.ba remains the only media platform tailored for the local BiH LGBTI community, offering information and news that are relevant to the identities, everyday lives and human rights of lesbians, gays, bisexual, transgender and intersex people. It is a place that gives a platform and amplifies the voices of the LGBTI community and activists, as well as an advocacy tool. SOC will convene a group of recognized opinion makers/influencers who are supportive, but who lack enough argumentation to convince the public that LGBTI people deserve the aforementioned rights and legal recognition. SOC will organize information sessions with different groups; opinion makers/influencers/public persons. SOC also will strengthen the local groups working on LGBTI human rights in Tuzla and Prijedor to have more influence on their local decision makers. SOC will give a sub-grant to Tuzla Open Centre (Tuzla) and the Association “Youth Center” Kvart (Prijedor) to work on sensitizing the representatives of local institutions and bringing local LGBTI community closer to the local institutions offering different services for projects. These local groups and their members and activists will also take part in advocacy campaigns and other actions in relation to the freedom of assembly, same-sex partnership and legal gender recognition. 7 SOC and their partners will raise a new generation of LGBTI activists, who will be trained in different aspects of work and activism for the human rights of LGBTI people, in order to transfer the amassed knowledge. The total grant amount is 107,000 USD. 4.2. During the reporting period, cooperation continued with the Ministry of Human Rights and Refugees of BiH, with the goal of implementing the Methodology for Reporting on Implementation of International Agreements (UN and EU) concerning human rights in BiH. 4.3. After a consultation meeting about the draft of the Standards Manual for Service Centers for supporting families of children and persons with developmental disabilities, attended by representatives of the Network of Service Centers, experts in relevant areas, representatives of competent institutions and other stakeholders, with the support of USAID/PMMG, a report was created with comments and recommendations for improving the draft. The Standards Manual will be finalized in the near future. 4.4. The trainings on Financial Management and Administration and Human resources were held on July 2-6, 2018, within the third cycle of trainings intended for CSOs dealing with issues of marginalized groups in BiH. Some statements of training participants are provided below: For me, financial management was particularly interesting because all our organizations are program organizations, which means we work on projects, and here we were given a chance to learn how to write our financial reports, how to make contracts, what type of contract to use, who to sign contracts with, and we learned about tax policy too, so I think this was an extremely good training. Enisa Bratanović: Association “H. O. Lotosice” Tuzla I'm very pleased we had the opportunity to take part in this training, since we're