The granting procedures are the following:
Assessment
Any human rights NGO or individual defender desiring urgent or standard support for its protection or to leverage/develop/sustain its/his/her human rights actions must present an application either in Arabic, English or French, meeting the guidelines made public on its website.
A collection of comprehensive basic information about the application and a thorough due diligence review is performed on each of the applications the Foundation receives. This process is based on a number of objective criteria, including an assessment of his/her/its legal and financial profile, an assessment of his/her/its performances and capacities to deal with the proposed human rights activities, an assessment of the relevance and efficiency of the suggested non-profit activities according to the developments on the ground and budgetary considerations as well as an assessment of his/her/its ethics and compliance with and respect of universal human rights values and standards.
This due diligence review is also undertaken through field visits and contacts with suggested and external civil society actors, resource persons and donors as well as screening of profiles, videos, articles online as well as using a compliance software.
Decision-making
A summary of the eligible application and its assessment are submitted to the Board within the framework of a secured consultation process. Decisions are taken by the Board either through an urgent-consultative mechanism (decision taken within a maximum of 10 days) or at Board meetings (twice per year). All decisions on grants are, in principle, taken by consensus of the members of the Board.
Agreement and Transfer
A contract is signed between the Foundation and the grant’s recipient. This agreement includes a detailed description of the obligations of the contracting parties, including the transfer methods and reporting obligations.
For grants over EUR 6,000, initial payment of 50 percent or 80 percent of the total amount is made by the Foundation. The outstanding 50 percent or 20 percent is only transferred after receipt, verification and concordance with the content of the narrative and financial reports.
Monitoring
A narrative and financial report must be sent by the recipients, along with invoices and other supporting documents substantiating the use of the grant. The Foundation has developed narrative and financial reporting templates, if needed by its partners, in Arabic, English and French.
The Secretariat assesses these reports, and present the main conclusions to the Board. The Foundation reserves the right to deduct amounts from the financial statement and/or request full or partial refund of the grant when the accounting is not correctly kept and/or the activity for which the funding was granted has not been implemented.
Follow-up
A key aim for the interventions is to ensure sustainability and a long-term perspective for civil society activity. When possible, a short-term intervention is thus be coupled with a long-term strategy. The Foundation notably engages in facilitating contacts for the applicant with other donors or institutions that might be able to provide additional technical and financial support to the latter.