Supporting civil society and grassroots organizations to make climate finance and action more transparent, inclusive and accountable.

World Resources Institute (WRI), President and CEO Announces Green Accountability Call for Proposals

From May 20th – June 19th at 5pm EDT, WRI is accepting grant proposals from civil society organizations (CSOs) in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Mexico and Senegal that are working to make climate finance and policymaking more transparent, inclusive and accountable. US$370,000 will be disbursed across 4-6 grants to each country to implement over 12-14 months. We welcome applications focused on the national, subnational and local levels.

While success will look different for each grantee, by the end of 2025 we expect civil society organizations to have strengthened country networks advocating for green accountability, developed evidence-based advocacy plans, and initiated dialogues with decision-makers that are likely to lead to more equitable, transparent and accountable climate action that benefits people and the planet.

In addition to the financial support, grantees will be welcomed into an inaugural Green Accountability Community of Practice where they can share learning, build cross-country networks, receive training on tools and approaches from global experts, and strengthen their tactics and strategies to enhance their own work.

Eligibility Requirements

Applicants must be legally registered, non-governmental, non-partisan organizations in Bangladesh, Brazil, Cameroon, Mexico, or Senegal, without exception.

Applying organizations must submit a budget that does not exceed 80% of their annual budget.

Access to a computerized financial system for tracking and recording expenses (preferably a professional accounting software)

At least one staff person with professional working proficiency with Excel (data entry and formulas), to be able to submit financial reports and payment requests

At least one staff person with proficiency in English (oral and written), to be able to sign the subgrant agreement, read guidance on allowability and procurement rules, submit the organizational assessment, narrative and financial progress, and communicate regularly via email and videoconference with WRI staff

Be able to provide your organization’s most recent annual audit, or ALL three of the
following documents:
  • Balance sheet for the previous two years;
  • Income Statement for the previous two years;
  • Cash Flow Statement for the previous two years

If you don’t meet one or more of these criteria, there are other ways you can still be involved:

  • If you are based in one of the five countries, but are not able to manage a grant of this size, a partner organization in your country may apply and issue a contract to your organization to help implement the work.
  • If you are not based in one of the five countries but are working on green accountability and would like to share learning with other organizations, please click here to learn more about the community of practice.

Types and Amounts of Available Funding

The project will award grants at two levels:

  1. One (1) large grant of approximately $150,000- $200,000 to one (1) finalist per country; and

  2. Three to five (3-5) grants between US$25,000 – US$55,000, per country.

The total number and monetary size of these grants will be determined by the number of quality of applications, scope of work and the opportunities to address multiple green accountability issues in each national context. Large grant recipients will be expected to provide more leadership within the Community of Practice, support in-country coordination with other grantees and consider how their activities and deliverables could support the goals of the smaller grantees as well. The Platform will provide grants totalling approximately $370,000 to each country.

How to Apply

WRI has identified 3-4 thematic issue areas under the umbrella of Green Accountability for each country. These thematic priorities were identified through desk research, interviews, and focus groups with civil society, government, and other stakeholders.

We expect most awarded applications to fall under one of these thematic areas. However, if a proposal does not fit under any of them, applicants may still submit it with an explanation of its relevance and importance.

Thematic Priorities

*Click country to view priorities

Bangladesh

Bangladesh

  • Embed civil society participation in monitoring the implementation of climate actions through the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan, the National Adaptation Plan, and other relevant planning and policy processes.
  • Make climate data and information more accessible, less fragmented, and available in formats that are relevant for civil society and other users through a community and stakeholder-driven process.
  • Build capacity and strengthen partnerships between local governments and civil society organizations to implement locally-led climate actions. 

Brazil

Brazil

  • Training and tools to strengthen access to information and social participation in the processes of construction and implementation of national and subnational climate policies, as well as in public investments for climate action.
  • Enhance monitoring and public participation in the design, implementation of climate adaptation public policies including budget definition and allocation.
  • Strengthen monitoring and public participation in Climate Councils or Forums as well as on National and State Climate Funds.
  • Promotion of transparency and accountability mechanisms for the bioeconomy agenda within the scope of the Multiannual Plan (PPA).

Cameroon

Cameroon

  • Establish a national system for transparently monitoring progress of green accountability, including national standards, a consensus driven methodology for analysis, and tracking of progress as well as enablers and constraints.
  • Promoting green accountability in the Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Monitoring (PPBS) chain in decentralized local authorities: This theme mainly aims to support the efforts of decentralized local authorities in the identification and characterization of climate finance in their municipal budget.
  • Supporting civil society coalitions on green accountability: This theme mainly aims to enable civil society organizations and platforms to strengthen their coordination capacities and conduct joint interventions in Cameroon.
  • In addition to these themes, applicant organizations are encouraged to consider two cross-cutting themes:
    • Innovative approaches to build ownership of green accountability outcomes across stakeholders
    • Taking into account new technologies in monitoring green accountability.

Mexico

Mexico

  • Provide civil society organizations with capacity support and tools to strengthen access to information, its monitoring, and social participation in the processes of planning, spending, and public investment in climate change projects.
  • Citizen monitoring of the performance of public programs and instruments for climate action.
  • Strengthening citizen participation in environmental policies and climate governance mechanisms.
  • Strengthening budgetary transparency in disaster risk management.

Senegal

Senegal

  • Improve the legal and institutional framework applicable to green accountability.
  • Establish a simplified, data-centered, sustainable and multi-scale (national and regional) mechanism for integrated monitoring of green accountability.
  • Synergies between civil society actors for the mobilization of citizens in the monitoring of climate and biodiversity instruments (CDN, SPNAB, PNA, etc.)

Evaluation Criteria

  • Applicants should demonstrate a track record working on climate governance and/or climate finance in their country or locality and be able to demonstrate how strengthening one or more of transparency, public participation, or accountability would make climate actions more effective, ambitious, or equitable.

    Higher scoring applicants will provide more specific details on what challenges have been faced, what has and has not been tried, and how green accountability can credibly enhance climate policy implementation in their country context.

    Weight: 20%

  • Applicants should demonstrate how their work is informed by, guided by, or responsive to grassroots communities and/or wider civil society. They will explain how they will leverage existing knowledge, campaigns, multistakeholder platforms or other means to enhance the likelihood of success. They will make clear what consultative mechanisms are in place to ensure their workplan is responsive to the needs of their constituencies.

    Higher scoring proposals will provide examples of the applicant’s grassroots and/or civil society stakeholders or demonstrate how this project addresses the specific needs of civil society/grassroots communities within the given context.

    Weight: 20%

  • Applicants should demonstrate their understanding of how gender and social identities, Indigenous Group affiliation, and climate vulnerability affect the fulfillment of green accountability in their country/local context. They should clearly state how their workplans will integrate these considerations and how they will ensure that their activities and deliverables are responsive to the needs of these groups.

    Higher scoring applicants will ground their analysis in examples, either from published reports or citing their own past work. If there are relevant social identity intersections in their context—such as gender and age, disability status and education level, etc.—they will describe how those will be addressed through their work. They will be able to demonstrate how their work is informed by historically excluded or marginalized groups, through leadership, staffing, advising, or other means.

    Weight: 20%

  • Applicants should demonstrate their understanding of the decision-makers most relevant to their proposal, the power they hold, and the actions they must take to enable the proposal to be most successful.

    Successful proposals will demonstrate at least a basic understanding of the mandates and interests of those actors and will be able to credibly demonstrate some level of established relationship, either through past convenings, knowledge sharing, collaboration, advocacy, or other means. The proposal should also define, at least preliminarily, the actors participating in the project's implementation stages and what will be their main contribution.

    Weight: 15%

  • Successful applicants will propose a workplan and budget that can plausibly be implemented over the course of 12-14 months with the resources provided, demonstrating an understanding of what is under their control, what processes are possible to influence and what decisions may take time beyond the scope of the grant to take effect.

    Higher scoring applicants will demonstrate an awareness of the constraints and opportunities for advancing green accountability in their thematic area of focus within 12-14 months. They will justify the level of their ambition with an explanation of likely levels of support or opposition from key actors or constituencies. The proposed workplan should contain specific implementation periods for the activities included. They may also indicate which other international or domestic donors have funding priorities aligned with the goals of the proposal for potential continued support beyond the term of this grant.

    Weight: 15%

  • Applicants should demonstrate how their workplan will introduce or adopt new strategies, tools, resources, or technology in a way that can credibly strengthen capacity, shift incentives, or build broader support for strengthening climate governance. Alternatively, this could include applying previously tested tools or approaches in new geographies or at different scales. The “type” or “form” of innovation may vary but the idea is to clearly demonstrate why the proposed work would improve upon past efforts.

    Higher scoring applicants will clearly identify what is innovative about their proposal and why they view it enhances the likelihood that decision-makers and/or other stakeholders will buy in to their proposed work.

    Weight: 10%

Project Timeline

May 20th – June 19th, 2024

Call for Applications

Week of May 27th, 2024

Prospective applicants with questions can register for an optional informational webinar in French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese

End of July 2024

Finalists are notified

August 2024

Award winners are announced

September 2024

Launch of Community of Practice

October 31, 2025

Close of grants

About the Green Accountability Platform

The Green Accountability Platform is a consortium consisting of World Resource Institute, Huairou Commission and SouthSouthNorth (SSN), made possible with financial support from the World Bank Global Partnership for Social Accountability. It will provide strategic finance to CSOs to make climate finance governance for climate mitigation and adaptation more transparent, participatory and accountable. Through its Community of Practice, grantees, grassroots organizations and green accountability practitioners and experts will share learning, strategies and tools.

The Platform aims to improve the impact and equity of climate finance in the target countries by supporting integration of community, citizen and CSO feedback into climate finance decision making. The Platform also encourages collaboration with relevant governmental institutions to influence, implement and monitor climate finance processes and decisions.

Why Now

We have a climate accountability crisis. Delays and setbacks mean that countries must dramatically accelerate cuts to carbon emissions over the next few years to reach the temperature goal set out in the Paris Agreement. As of late 2023, only 1 of 42 indicators assessing the state of transformations needed is on track. And despite the growing need for climate resilience, finance flows for adaptation fell 15% in 2021, and the scale of adaptation action has stagnated, according to the UN.

Political leaders must be bolder and one way to encourage that is through transparent and participatory policymaking processes that lead to fair outcomes. Even policies that are carefully designed to be equitable can face public backlash if the processes to create them are not trusted.

Wealthy countries must meet their climate finance commitments to developing countries. We currently lack consistent data on where climate funds are flowing and who makes decisions on them. Fewer than 20 countries have climate budget tagging systems and only a few have a clear definition for climate finance. Yet the availability of finance doesn’t guarantee that it reaches the communities who face the greatest risks to their safety, livelihoods and culture.

Green accountability is about ensuring those who face the most risk can have timely access to information, can influence decisions that impact them and make public authorities answer to them when commitments are not met. While many countries have established public participation to an extent, too often these opportunities are late in the process, are not designed to be inclusive, or fail to close to the feedback loop with participants by showing how their input was considered in the final decision.

Join the Community of Practice

Grant recipients will also be part of a Community of Practice that will provide peer-to-peer learning and knowledge sharing opportunities to identify scalable green accountability innovations and implement coalition-building strategies. It is a space for green accountability leaders and practitioners to build their networks. If you’re an organization that is not based in one of these five countries, but are working on green accountability at the country, regional or international level and are interested in learning more about the Community of Practice, please register here.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • No, we will accept proposals that also focus on transparency, participation and accountability of policymaking processes as well as other aspects related to their implementation.

  • You may still submit it but add a paragraph to make the case for its importance.

  • We will begin contacting finalists by early July, 2024. However, all finalists must undergo an organizational assessment so decisions will not be made final until August, 2024.

  • No, we will accept focused on governance processes supporting either or both.

  • The call for applications is intended for country-based organizations that do not have access to the same sources of finance as international NGOs.

  • First, your budget total should not exceed 75% of your organization’s annual budget. WRI will evaluate the plausibility, ambition, potential for impact, and the ability of the applicant to complete the work without issuing more subawards than is permitted. We will also consider the total number of qualified applicants.

  • Under World Bank rules, grant recipients cannot subgrant. However, they may issue contracts.

  • Large grant recipients may subaward up to three (3) new contracts valued at over US $3,000 and smaller grant recipients may subaward up to two (2). There is no limit on contracts that represent a continuation of existing work or contracts valued at less than US $3,000.

  • While it is possible that circumstances may change by 2025, at this point you should consider the October 31st as the deadline for implementation.

  • Local organizations are eligible to receive subgrants, provided they have an up-to-date certificate of incorporation/operation/permit/registration that allows them to operate in the country where the activities financed by the subgrant will be implemented. The organization’s legal entity must also fall under the definition of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). All staff and consultants must be based in country and all budget must be spent locally.

    “Civil Society Organization” or “CSO”: means a legal entity that falls outside the public or for-profit sector, such as nongovernment organizations, not-for-profit media organizations, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, professional organizations, labor unions, associations of elected local representatives, foundations, and policy development and research institutes.; and “CSOs” means, collectively and indistinctively, more than one such CSO.”

  • Consortiums are eligible to receive subgrants, given that they can provide a certificate of legal entity within the CSO definition. Depending on the legal structure of the consortium, one or all partners may undergo the Due Diligence process if selected as a finalist. Only the organization receiving the funding directly from WRI via subgrants will be subjected to the Due Diligence process.

  • There is no limit or specific amount/percentage for indirect costs in your budget. If selected as finalists, the organization must submit their indirect cost policy. If the organization does not have such a policy, then a justification of the amount/percentage calculation must be provided.

  • There is no limit on personnel in the budget. You should only include staff who will directly contribute to the success of the project. Be sure to include their title, level of effort (%), and a brief description of their responsibilities in the project.

  • Small organizations are limited to at two new contracts, while large organizations are limited to at most three new contracts. However, we will evaluate organizations that submit more than the required number of contracts and their value added to the project. Existing contracts do not count towards the limit.

  • To continue with the application, applicants must click on “Check eligibility” to confirm eligibility. All tabs are hidden until they click on this button at the bottom of the page. This action is necessary to be considered eligible and proceed with their application.