Call for Proposals from Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), including NGOs for small grants to provide legal aid including legal representation, legal awareness and legal advice, and psychosocial support to vulnerable groups including women, girls, and SG

Link to Atlas Project

00127551 – Support to Access to Justice, Security and Human Rights

Documents

TOR
CFP template
Project Budget

Overview

Background and Context: 

Since gaining independence in 2011, South Sudan has continued to face significant challenges in building effective state institutions capable of delivering essential public services, including justice and security. The country remains in a fragile and conflict-affected context characterized by prolonged armed conflict, displacement, weak governance systems, and limited institutional capacity. Women and girls have been disproportionately affected, particularly through conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), gender-based violence (GBV), and other grave human rights violations.

Although the 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (R-ARCSS) marked important progress toward peace and stabilization, access to justice for most South Sudanese citizens remains severely constrained, particularly for vulnerable and marginalized populations.

South Sudan continues to experience considerable access to justice challenges arising from protracted conflict, weak institutional capacity, inadequate geographical coverage of justice institutions, and deeply entrenched harmful social and cultural norms. Vulnerable groups — including women, girls, survivors of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees, refugees, persons with disabilities, and older persons — continue to face systemic barriers in accessing justice and protection services.

In Central Equatoria State, justice institutions and actors remain overstretched and under-resourced, with limited capacity to effectively respond to increasing cases of SGBV, prolonged pre-trial detention, land and family disputes, serious overcrowding, and other human rights violations within places of detention. In this context, UNDP seeks to strengthen access to justice through engagement with a qualified and registered civil society organization working on legal and human rights issues. The selected CSO/NGO will support victims and survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, women in conflict with the law, and juveniles in and out of the correctional system through the provision of legal aid, legal awareness, through legal clinics alternative dispute resolution (ADR), psychosocial support, and referral services using a coordinated, survivor-centered, and rights-based approach.

The Problem

Access to justice in South Sudan remains constrained by structural, political, institutional, and socio-cultural factors. These include inadequate justice infrastructure, shortage of qualified legal personnel, underfunded institutions, limited legal awareness, and entrenched harmful customary practices. Additionally, the widespread proliferation of small arms and persistent communal violence continue to exacerbate insecurity and instability across the country.

In many parts of South Sudan, formal justice systems remain weak, inaccessible, or non-existent, leaving victims — particularly women, girls, juveniles, and other marginalized populations — without effective legal remedies or protection mechanisms.

This project seeks to build upon ongoing legal aid and transitional justice initiatives to strengthen access to formal and community-based justice systems in South Sudan, with a strong emphasis on people-centered justice approaches. The intervention directly responds to the urgent justice, human rights, and protection needs of vulnerable populations, particularly survivors of past and ongoing conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), detainees held without trial, and women and youth with limited access to justice services.

The project will support legal aid services, mobile/circuit court processes, referrals from Victim Support Groups (VSGs), and community-level restorative justice initiatives. In addition, justice institutions and actors will receive support to strengthen survivor-centered, trauma-informed, and gender-responsive approaches in the delivery of justice services.

3. Scope of the work

The UNDP Access to Justice and Human Rights Programme seeks to engage a qualified national civil society organization (CSO)/NGO working on legal and human rights issues in South Sudan to collaborate with justice and security sector institutions in Central Equatoria State.

The selected organization will support efforts aimed at ensuring that victims and survivors of conflict-related sexual violence receive appropriate legal and psychosocial support; detainees on remand are processed in accordance with the law; cases are followed up and resolved; and inmates — particularly juveniles and women in conflict with the law — receive psychosocial support, legal assistance, and legal awareness services through community outreach initiatives.

In this regard, the Project seeks the support of a national CSO/NGO to undertake the following functions:

• Legal Aid and Representation Services
• Legal Aid Support to Detainees
• Psychosocial Support and Referral Services
• Legal Awareness and Community Outreach
• Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Services.

• For detail information see ToR attached. Use template attached to response i- Cfp template to prepare project proposal ii- ICE to be prepare  project budget and ensure all mandatory documents are submitted along with the proposal. Only qualified proposal for award will be informed. proposals must be emailed to cfp.ss@undp.org with the subject: Call for proposal to provide legal aid including legal representation, legal awareness and legal advice, and psychosocial support to vulnerable groups including women, girls, and SGBV survivors in one of the following states in Central Equatoria State. deadline 6/6/2026