Federal International Development Grants

This funding opportunity provides financial support to organizations working to prevent the misuse of biological weapons and enhance global biosecurity standards, targeting both state and non-state threats.

A. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The U.S. Embassy Skopje Public Affairs Section (PAS) of the U.S. Department of State is pleased to announce that funding is available through its Public Diplomacy Small Grants Program. This is an Annual Program Statement, outlining our funding priorities, the strategic themes we focus on, and the procedures for submitting requests for funding. Please carefully follow all instructions below. Purpose of Small Grants: PAS Skopje invites proposals for programs that strengthen people-to-people ties between the U.S. and North Macedonia through cultural and exchange programming that highlights shared values and promotes bilateral cooperation. All programs must include an American cultural element, or connection with American expert/s, organization/s, or institution/s in a specific field that will promote increased understanding of U.S. policy and perspectives. Examples of PAS Small Grants Program programs include, but are not limited to: Academic and professional lectures, seminars and speaker programs Artistic and cultural workshops, joint performances and exhibitions Cultural heritage conservation and preservation programs Professional and academic exchanges and programs Programs focused on entrepreneurship and innovation Programs focused on diversity and empowerment of youth and underserved communities Programs focused on democratic processes and values Programs focused on gender issues Programs focused on human and equal rights Programs focused on media literacy Programs focused on strengthening resiliency against disinformation; and malign influence Programs focused on environment protection Programs that support North Macedonias Euro-Atlantic integration process Priority Program Areas: The objectives of the Public Diplomacy Grant Program are to promote positive relations between North Macedonia and the United States; to reinforce shared values; and to connect North Macedonias emerging leaders to the American people. We fund projects that: Help North Macedonias youth build and develop skills to improve their potential through innovative science (especially environmental and health awareness), technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEM) programs, as well as through entrepreneurship programs and vocational training. Focus on educating youth and publics about current environmental issues, including crafting creative solutions to environmental challenges, green energy initiatives and energy conservation, climate change adaptation strategies, as well as action plans to deal with water scarcity exacerbated by climate change and urbanization. Encourage North Macedonias youth to participate in civic life through social entrepreneurship, volunteerism, and community engagement. Strengthen understanding of U.S. values and institutions; highlight US culture, including American Studies, English language teaching/learning, and study in the United States; as well as support diversity through the acceptance of minority groups, including individuals with special needs or handicapping conditions, and other areas of mutual interest. Participants and Audiences: US Mission North Macedonia encourages not only diverse applicants to apply to our grants programs but would also like to see diverse target audiences and trainers. Diversity can be defined by different geographic regions, ethnicities, religious orientations, gender, physical disabilities including visual, hearing, speech, and other physically handicapping conditions. The following types of programs are not eligible for funding: Printing or promotion of books or manuscripts Travel to the United States for professional development Promotion of local arts scenes Projects that are inherently political in nature or that contain the appearance of partisanship/support to individual or single-party electoral campaigns Charitable or development activities Construction programs Programs that support specific religious activities Fund-raising campaigns Lobbying for specific legislation or programs Scientific research Commercial or trade activities Individual travel to conferences and meetings Social welfare projects Programs intended primarily for the growth or institutional development of the organization Ongoing salary costs and office equipment Paying to complete activities that were begun with other funds or Programs that duplicate existing programs

This funding opportunity is designed for Uruguayan nonprofit organizations and educational institutions to manage a small grants program that promotes U.S.-Uruguay relations through collaborative projects.

This funding opportunity supports alumni of U.S. government-sponsored exchange programs in creating innovative community projects that address global challenges and promote U.S. partnerships, particularly in celebration of the 250th anniversary of American independence.

The U.S. Embassy of New Zealand Public Diplomacy Section (PDS) of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations and individuals s to submit applications to carry out projects that will strengthen media capacity, provide media training, and/or provide substantive benefit to media networks in New Zealand and the Pacific by increasing and refining their ability to provide independent, accurate, and fair coverage of topics of importance to the Pacific to their audiences in New Zealand and the Pacific nations. Priority Region: New Zealand and the Pacific. Program Objectives: This funding opportunity aligns with the United States goal to strengthen democratic institutions, protect human rights, and accelerate the fight against disinformation. The second Summit for Democracy affirmed the commitment of the U.S. Government to support free and independent media around the world. Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. One of the key purposes of the U.S. Department of States Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policys Democratic Roadmap; Building Civic resilience to the Global Digital Information Manipulation Challenge is to recognize that building information integrity can be consistent with freedom of opinion and expression. The Roadmap states, access to fact-based information is essential for citizens to form opinions and exercise their rights, a fundamental principle of democracy. Without access to fair and balanced media coverage, which starts with a resilient and informed media with the capacity to identify and counter disinformation, the democratic values that we share with our neighbors in the Pacific region will be at risk. This Funding Opportunity aims to provide assistance to organizations and/or individuals committed to the ideals of a media free from interference from outside sources of any kind.

This funding opportunity provides financial support to U.S.-based nonprofit organizations and for-profit businesses to help foreign governments adopt trusted digital technologies, enhancing cybersecurity and infrastructure resilience while countering potentially harmful foreign technology influences.

This funding opportunity provides U.S. colleges and universities with resources to create specialized training programs for international agricultural professionals, enhancing their skills and knowledge in areas like trade, policy, and food safety.

This funding opportunity provides financial support to organizations working to strengthen legal and regulatory frameworks in select Asian and European countries to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and related technologies.

The Department of States Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations (CSO) aims to support a program to empower Pacific Island Countries (PICs) to identify areas of possible economic coercion or corruption and create strategies to prevent foreign influence from negatively impacting their ability to make sovereign decisions and to build their resilience to such influence. This program will provide regional expertise, background topical research and advice on coordinating a regional or national tabletop exercise or exercises (TTX) for the PICs.

This grant provides funding for U.S. citizens with expertise in various fields to engage in public diplomacy activities that promote American values and foster partnerships with audiences in sub-Saharan Africa.

This funding opportunity provides financial support for not-for-profit organizations and educational institutions to bring American experts to Brazil for collaborative engagements in key sectors like energy, technology, and public safety, fostering stronger U.S.-Brazil relations.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION The U.S. Embassy Niamey of the U.S. Department of State announces an open competition for organizations to submit applications to carry out a program to increase womens participation in security decision-making in Maradi Region. Please follow all instructions below. Priority Region: Maradi Region Program Description and Objectives: Armed banditry and transnational organized crime have surged along the Niger-Nigeria border in Maradi Region since the coup detat in July 2023. Armed banditry and transnational organized crime thrive on the criminal groups close relational ties to individuals in targeted communities. Women in criminally targeted communities have both extensive information and unique influence over these relational ties, which facilitate the selection of banditry targets as well as the planning and implementation of illicit trafficking and other transnational criminal activity that sustains violent extremist organizations (VEOs) like the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). Prior to the coup detat, women civil society leaders in Maradi Region gained a hard-fought representative seat on the Maradi Regional Security Council due to the advocacy and training provided by the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership- funded Women Preventing Violent Extremism Project. Unfortunately, the coup detat cost the women leaders their seat on the Council when the National Council for Safeguarding the Homeland (CNSP) replaced key advocates like the former Governor of Maradi Region and various local officials with new appointees who have not received gender mainstreaming training. The surge in armed banditry and transnational organized crime in Maradi Region necessitates renewed efforts to ensure that women civil society leaders secure formal representation in regional and departmental security councils and other deliberative bodies. The U.S. Embassy Niamey thus seeks applications to formalize womens representation in regional and departmental security councils in Maradi Region. Prospective projects should respond to the following objective: Women leaders in Maradi Region will increase and institutionalize their leadership in community policing and security decision-making by 2026. Prospective projects should reflect a strong strategic vision with clearly defined procedures for institutionalizing womens leadership in community policing and peace and security decision-making. Prospective projects should build on previous women-led peacebuilding interventions in Maradi Regionparticularly those led by the Martaba Networkand work with local women leaders who have been already trained on mediation skills and countering violent extremism (CVE). Applicants are strongly encouraged against holding new trainings for local women leaders and are instead advised to work with local women leaders who have previously received mediation and CVE training. Applicants are advised to focus on strategic activities that advance womens integration into local peace process mediation. Possible project activities include: - Rapid gender inclusion assessment of Maradi Region community policing and security decision-making - Gender inclusion strategy development for Maradi Region community policing and security decision-making - Advocacy meetings to implement a security decision-making gender inclusion strategy - Gender-inclusive peace monitoring - Public gender inclusion sensitization activities Close collaboration with Nigerien authorities like the Ministry of Interiors Stabilization Unit and the High Authority for the Consolidation of Peace (HACP) as well as other partners implementing community policing activities in Maradi Region is essential for successful project implementation. The successful applicant will demonstrate a successful track record of gender inclusion in local peacebuilding and will have collaborated previously with national or local Nigerien authorities. Applicants should budget for quarterly meetings of a project advisory group that will ensure coordination with Nigerien authorities and other women, peace, and security implementing partners. Participants and Audiences: The successful applicant will work with the Martaba Network of women community leaders in Maradi Region. The successful applicant will build on pre-existing relationships with local and national Nigerien authorities, community leaders, and womens leaders in Maradi Region to manage a broad coalition of partners critical to successful gender inclusion.

This funding opportunity provides financial support to non-profit organizations, educational institutions, and individuals for projects that strengthen U.S.-Israel relations and promote American values in various sectors, including economic, cultural, and security initiatives.

This funding opportunity provides financial support to organizations working to prevent the spread of ISIS ideologies among Iraqi returnees from Northeast Syria, focusing on building local capacity for detection and intervention.

The Department of States Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office) is pleased to invite organizations to submit proposals to provide global on-demand training and/or technical assistance in support of its global Training and Technical Assistance (T) Program. The Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons (TIP Office) announces an open competition for projects in support of its global Training and Technical Assistance (T&TA) Program. The TIP Office manages foreign assistance programs dedicated to combating human trafficking outside of the United States. The TIP Office awards grants to combat all forms of human trafficking—sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, forced labor, domestic servitude, forced child labor, and the unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers. The Department of State’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) provides a diagnostic assessment of the efforts of governments to combat human trafficking and shapes our foreign assistance priorities. More information is available at: https://www.state.gov/international-programs-office-to-monitor-and-combattrafficking-in-persons/. The TIP Office’s Training and Technical Assistance (T&TA) program aims to increase government and/or civil society capacity to combat human trafficking. T&TA is most appropriate for addressing specific knowledge or other capacity gaps through targeted, short-term interventions. The TIP Office can provide training and/or technical assistance on topics spanning all 4Ps – Prevention, Protection, Prosecution, and Partnership. However, prevention is not often a direct or dominant focus for individual T&TA interventions, it is instead frequently integrated into the T&TA interventions through the lens of Protection, Prosecution, and/or Partnership. T&TA interventions are most often initiated by requests from U.S. Embassies abroad, or sometimes from our T&TA implementing partners. The TIP Office reviews requests for T&TA on a rolling basis throughout the year. Selected T&TA requests are then referred by the TIP Office to the relevant implementer, depending on the type of assistance requested, the implementer’s areas of expertise, and funding availability. The timeline to complete T&TA activities will depend on a variety of factors such as strategic priorities and country contexts. The selected implementer should be able to create an intervention concept note and budget in response to the specific T&TA request before the intervention is approved for implementation. The selected implementer should also expect to work closely with TIP Office staff throughout the development and implementation of interventions and activities. T&TA interventions can be standalone or they can lay the groundwork for or complement other programming, but they do not take the place of longer, multiyear programs. Individual T&TA interventions can sometimes also be structured in phases, with each phase being subject to TIP Office approval. T&TA activities may be conducted in countries across all regions of the world, so the scope of T&TA implementers’ capabilities must be global. The selected applicant should be able to respond to unanticipated requests for assistance in any country and/or region, with few exceptions. Some examples of what past T&TA interventions have looked like include, but are not limited to, the following: • Review of and edits to draft legislation or implementing regulations on a 24-hour turnaround; • Development and adoption of Foreign Government National Action Plan over the course of five months from receipt of request to final adoption; • Targeted technical assistance on the process to accede to United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC) and the Palermo Protocol; • Rapid diagnostic needs assessment on anti-trafficking capacity gaps of specialized anti-trafficking practitioners conducted within four weeks of initial request, followed by the development and delivery of a tailored training curriculum; • Tailored trainings delivered to law enforcement, prosecutors, and judges on how to build a human trafficking case in a country with limited resources and low capacity; • Tailored trainings delivered to shelter staff to improve identification, screening, and assistance of victims of trafficking, as well as technical assistance to develop necessary tools, such as screening forms and risk assessments; • Creation and implementation of a training series curriculum tailored to psychological and legal service providers to victims of trafficking in urban and rural locations both virtually and in-person, delivered over the course of several months; • Regional training for law enforcement and prosecutors, tailoring the materials for applicability across various participating countries in the region. While some T&TA activities can be conducted remotely, and the ability to provide some programming virtually is an asset to the T&TA Program and to the selected implementers, the majority of T&TA activities are conducted in-person. Because T&TA interventions can take place in settings where utilities, such as internet connectivity, are unreliable, the TIP Office will not be able to consider applications whose model of T&TA delivery is entirely remote.

This funding opportunity supports non-profit organizations and educational institutions in organizing a six-day summit in Manila for emerging leaders from ASEAN countries to address regional security challenges and strengthen U.S.-ASEAN partnerships.

This grant provides funding to nonprofit organizations, educational institutions, and civil society groups to connect U.S. experts and cultural figures with Canadian audiences on important topics, fostering bilateral relationships between the U.S. and Canada.

This funding opportunity supports Ukrainian non-profit organizations in developing educational partnerships with U.S. institutions to improve workforce training and align skills with labor market needs, particularly for veterans and mid-career professionals.

The U.S. Department of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) announces an open competition for an evaluation project that contributes to building a portfolio of evidence regarding inclusive human rights in Ukraine. In support of this goal, DRL seeks to promote the use of sound data and generate findings on what works, for whom, and why in democracy and human rights programming abroad. Projects should support the following objective: the rights of marginalized, underserved, and at-risk individuals in Ukraine are recognized and respected within a democracy, rights, and good governance framework.

This funding opportunity provides financial support to non-profit organizations and individuals in the U.S. and Albania to create entrepreneurship incubators that connect young Albanian entrepreneurs with U.S. business expertise and resources.