Building Strong Civil Society Organizations in Cameroon

The U.S. Embassy in Cameroon announces an open competition for applications to carry out a program to strengthen the organizational and managerial capacity of Civil Society Organizations in Cameroon. The program will provide a better understanding of the role of civil society organizations as a pillar of democratic systems, provide CSO leaders from across Cameroon the knowledge, skills, and tools to effectively manage their organizations while leveraging all available opportunities for enhanced community impact. The program should provide participants the opportunity to learn from each other to develop standard operating procedures that ensure effective achievement of organizations' goals and objectives.

Please carefully follow all instructions below.

Priority Region: All regions of Cameroon

Program Objectives:

The program will consist of series of 5 workshops in 5 different regional headquarters of Cameroon. Each regional workshop will bring together participants from two regions.

Each workshop will consist of a three-day training focusing on various aspects of CSO management. Topics covered will include, among others:

The role of CSOs in a democracy

Managing community organizations in emerging democracies

The legal framework of CSOs in Cameroon

Servant leadership and community engagement

Proposal writing and project management, including the elaboration of key performance indicators and reporting

Understanding the USG Federal Assistance principles and mechanism

Financial management for sustainable CSOs

Effective use of traditional and modern communication tools for enhanced impact

The final training curriculum should be developed following an assessment of Cameroonian CSOs capacities and weaknesses.

Participants and Audiences:

Each workshop will bring together 30 established CSO leaders with at least two-years of experience working in an association, NGO, trade union, or community-based organization. Each participant will commit to organize a pass-it-on activity for a minimum of 10 CSO members in his/her town. There should be plans for robust media coverage to broaden the impact of the project.

The launching of each of the workshops would be open to local authorities. The grantee should design a robust media coverage plan ensuring that the project will have high visibility.

American Content:

Proposals must include an element of American expertise, American resources on the topic at hand, or American cultural or societal experience relevant to the topic. This may be accomplished by incorporating U.S.-origin materials, theories, or other resources, or the involvement of American expert(s), organization(s), or institution(s) or Cameroonian alumni of U.S.-sponsored exchange programs that will promote increased understanding of U.S. values, culture, policy, and/or perspectives.

The following types of activities are not eligible for funding:

Scholarships for study in the United States or to fund conference attendance or study tours to the United States

Activities that are inherently political in nature or that contain the appearance of partisanship

Construction activities

Programs that support specific religious activities

Fund-raising campaigns

Cash prizes for participants