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.