1. BACKGROUND
Pact is an International NGO with offices throughout the world with a mission to enable systematic solutions that allow those who are poor and marginalized to earn a dignified living, be healthy and take part in the benefits that nature provides. Pact accomplishes this by strengthening local capacity, forging effective governance systems, and transforming markets into a force for development. Pact has worked in Ukraine since 2006 in the areas of governance, capacity development, and health. Building on a decade of experience, we address key challenges facing civil society organizations in Ukraine.
This Request for Proposals (RFP) is a part of the Activity to Enhance Non-Governmental Actors and Grassroots Engagement (ENGAGE). The purpose of ENGAGE is to increase citizen awareness of and engagement in civic activities at the national, subnational, and local level.
Since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, ensuring continuous and adequate international solidarity, political, financial, humanitarian, and military support has become one of Ukraine’s priority policies and a mission of many media and civil society organizations. To attain this objective, state institutions, media and civic actors actively reached out to international audiences to strategically communicate “Ukraine’s story.” ENGAGE CSO partners also refocused their media and citizen outreach campaigns on topics related to the war, including outreach to foreign audiences with war crime documenting efforts, street rallies to support the provision of enhanced aid packages to Ukraine, as well as array of cultural diplomacy events, high profile meetings with policy makers and meaningful appearances in media. In the first year of the full-scale invasion, these efforts helped to secure popular support to Ukraine and contributed to governmental strategic communication aimed at ensuring Ukraine’s EU candidacy status.
However, with periodic high-profile corruption scandals, internal political infighting, slow progress and pushbacks on the frontline, Ukrainians’ declining trust in the President and growing disbelief that the country is moving in the right direction[1] are some of the reasons for a growing fatigue amongst its western partners. Ukraine’s international partners’ own electoral processes as well global events, such as the Israel-Gaza war, are diverting foreign media, public and policymakers’ attention from Ukraine. The number of articles about Ukraine in major international online media as well as the social media buzz have been steadily and sharply declining since April 2023. At the same time, in the Global South countries (China, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Turkey, and UAE) 34% of people surveyed had a clear pro-Ukrainian position, with a further 46% being neutral to Ukraine or Russia, and the rest 20% positive to Russia. This contrasts with around 80% of the population in Europe and North America who claimed they supported Ukraine and roughly 15% had a neutral position. Overall, the support for Russia and neutrality were higher in the countries of the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America — 25% and 15% on average, respectively[2].
As Ukraine enters the third year of full-scale war with Russia, this situation creates both risks and opportunities for Ukraine’s strategic communication abroad. In FY24, in order to help its CSO partners communicate “Ukraine’s story” more strategically abroad, Pact seeks to procure a set of comprehensive services aimed at identifying evidence-based communication strategies for communication and placing of stories covering domestic events taking place in Ukraine, as well as CSO partners’ success stories and policy-relevant products to various foreign audiences, especially those located in the Global South, specifically MENA region, South-East Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
2. SCOPE OF WORK
A. Place of Performance
All of the services required under this solicitation will be performed in Ukraine.
B. Period of Performance
All services required under this solicitation will be delivered from March 2024 and will conclude by May 30, 2024.
C. Scope of Work
Purpose:
To help maintain international support to Ukraine and its advocacy agenda by identifying effective strategies to raise international awareness of domestic events and ENGAGE partners’ stories abroad.
Objectives:
- To develop a comprehensive communication strategy to ensure dissemination of truthful content covering events taking place in Ukraine and ENGAGE partners’ stories in foreign media.
- To streamline ENGAGE partners’ international outreach activities and messaging in line with the proposed strategy to ensure a more strategic approach to communication with foreign audiences.
Expected Results:
- International awareness of domestic events taking place inside of Ukraine increased.
To achieve the above objectives, it is expected that the following services will be provided:
- Conduct an analysis of Ukraine’s perception in the Global South, specifically the MENA region, South-East Asia, Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Conduct meetings with ENGAGE partners to map outreach activities aimed at reaching foreign audiences located in the Global South, specifically the MENA region, South-East Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Identify the most compelling and impactful messages for the planned program activities, which can then be highlighted as success stories and communicated to foreign media.
- Develop communication strategy identifying key messages, geographies, and local counterparts to be engaged in communication. The list of local counterparts could include but should not be limited to traditional (TV, radio, press) and online media outlets; think tanks, CSOs, opinion leaders, policy makers and businesses.
If you have questions, please submit them electronically to mbodak@pactworld.org. The email subject line should read “Questions on RFP P4767-2024-11 – the name of the organization submitting the question.” Questions to this RFP will be answered on a case-by-case basis.
Proposals must be submitted in electronic format only (PDF, MS Word, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint) to mbodak@pactworld.org by March 20, 2024 (23:59 Kyiv time).
[1] https://www.kiis.com.ua/?lang=eng&cat=reports&id=1368&page=1