The Strengthening Civil Society and Media Systems (Sawt) Activity is a five-year (2022-2027) cooperative agreement funded by USAID and implemented by Internews in partnership with Mercy Corps and the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). Sawt will create a Virtuous Cycle of Civic Engagement through two objectives: (1) Good, trusted knowledge-building resource: improve community knowledge on their rights and relevant issues through access to fact-based, trusted, and reliable content from digital media, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and other civic spaces, and (2) Participation and Advocacy: increasing opportunities for citizens to participate in regular constructive civic dialogue through building CSO and citizen advocacy capacity to increase trust and government accountability. The Activity will work on building the resilience of partners to operate in a challenging political and legal environment. Furthermore, Sawt will ensure underrepresented voices are included, heard, represented fairly, and can safely access and use resources.

The Sawt Activity seeks to support advocacy, public policy initiatives and media content production by providing grants that support issue-based advocacy initiatives and contributions to forming and informing public policies efforts led by Jordanian organizations in collaboration with digital media platforms. These organizations may include for-profit companies, not-for-profit companies, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Community Based Organizations (CBOs), Non-Government organizations (NGOs), and media platforms that are legally registered in Jordan. Selected organizations for the advocacy grants are encouraged to collaborate with other organizations, the media, and other stakeholders to ensure wider participation and impactful civic engagement.  

This Annual Program Statement (APS) includes three sub-funds as follows:  

• Sub-fund 1: Advocacy Grants: Advocacy Grants to support organizations to conduct advocacy initiatives at the national or local levels.
• Sub-fund 2: Public Policy Grants: Public Policy Grants to support organizations’ roles in public policy formation and reform at the national or local levels.
• Sub-fund 3: Media Content Production: Grants to support media platforms to produce media content that promotes, discusses, and provides flow of healthy information on key issues, and information needs identified as public priorities.

  

* Only applications submitted as per the instructions described in the APS will be considered.