• CSOs’ internal governance structures, transparency and accountability to their constituency;
• Financial management;
• Monitoring and evaluation;
• Strategic planning;
• Evidence based policy making;
• Coalition-building in campaigning and advocacy;
• Communicating results to the public.

We invite you to read thoroughly the CRM documents before preparing your request for support. If you have questions, you can write to our Help Desk at: crm-helpdesk@eu4cr.mk

All questions with answers will be published under Frequently Asked Questions.

1. The Civil Resilience Mechanism supports rights-based actions, what does the rights-based approach mean?
The rights-based approach requires the attention of institutions, groups, or individuals who have responsibility or duty in an ideal world to provide the services, protect the rights or take the measures you intend to cover in your action. These so-called duty-bearers could be local bodies, ministries, parliamentarians, universities, CSOs, private sector, professional organisations, international organisations, community leaders, etc.

The rights-based approach develops the capacity of duty-bearers to meet their obligations and encourages rights-holders to claim their rights. For each action, different duty-bearers might have different roles and responsibilities. If these actors are not fulfilling their responsibilities or duties and if you do nothing to change this with your action, it will mean that things continue to be the same and you would need endlessly to continue raising funds for filling in the gaps left out by duty-bearers. Thereby, it can be said that the rights-based approach also aims for the sustainability of actions and results.

To better develop rights-based actions, you can follow these steps:

1. Consider that you are living in an ideal world, which institutions, groups or individuals will be fulfilling the activities/services/measures that you will be implementing in your action?
2. Think of their roles and duties. What are they doing? What should they ideally be doing/ providing?
3. Contemplate on which roles and duties are performed or under-performed and which ones are not being done by the relevant duty-bearers you identified?
4. Now focus on your action and the results/outcomes you want to achieve in the action you are designing. You can consider collaborating with the relevant duty bearers for the duties they are performing to make your action stronger. For duties you identified as under-performed, you might consider building the capacities of the relevant duty-bearers to ensure proper performance. And for those that are not handled at all, you might consider either advocating towards the relevant duty-bearers and remind them of their roles and responsibilities and/or collaborate with them in building their capacities to take responsibility.
5. Once you decide on the approach above, now you can start thinking and planning about the specific activities you need to implement within your strategy. For example, if you will be building capacity, then most probably you will need to conduct seminars, trainings, study visits, research, and reports. If it is advocacy, then you will most probably be using research, social media campaigns, lobbying directly with the duty-bearers, petitions, collaborating with other CSOs that work in the same field to increase the effect and impact of your advocacy campaign, etc. These are only examples and the types of activities you will need to pick will be very much related to the duty-bearers’ character and approach.
6. Now that you know all the details, you can add the duty-bearers you identified, the duties and responsibilities you would like to see them fulfilling, your strategy to include them in your action (advocacy and awareness-raising vs. collaboration and capacity building, or vice versa.)

The rights-based approach is implemented through the application of five guiding working principles:

• Applying all rights,
• Participation and access to the decision-making process,
• Non-discrimination and equal access,
• Accountability and access to the rule of law,
• Transparency and access to information.

To read more on the rights-based approach click HERE.

2. What type of measures can we include to take cross-cutting issues like gender, environment, youth, accessibility in our action design?
The Civil Resilience Mechanism, in line with the rights-based approach, seeks for consideration and integration of cross-cutting issues, particularly the following: ensuring access of people with different disabilities, involvement of disadvantaged groups, environment protection, gender equality and youth inclusion. There are relevant questions in the request for support form in which you are being asked how you will also target and include these cross-cutting areas within the specific activities, policies, and/or specific measures which will strengthen your action and contribute to the programme objectives.

Such measures and activities vary from ensuring the equal participation of genders, young people, disadvantaged groups and people with disabilities in your activities supported by the CRM, to organising specific activities to include young women with disabilities or to providing specific measures (e.g., accessible venues, vegan or vegetarian catering, non-use of plastic bottles, recycling). When and if there is a research component in your action, you can make sure that all genders and ages are represented in the survey. Or when and if you will be creating a website or video you can consider sign language and subtitles for people with different disabilities). In your monitoring of action results, you can consider assessing how different groups of people (disaggregated by gender, age, disability, etc.) are being affected by your intervention.

3. Can a CSO request support for more than one Action?
A CSO can receive in-kind support through the Civil Resilience Mechanism for the implementation of one Action only.

4. Can we get support from the Civil Resilience Mechanism for designing or drafting our action? If yes, what kind of support can we receive?
All CSOs that want to request support from the Civil Resilience Mechanism can ask for assistance from the CRM Team – Help Desk at all stages: pre-request, request and implementation stages. However, please note that CRM Team – Help Desk will not assist you in writing or filling out the form or make any compliance check for your request for support form. The help desk support consists of clarifications and/or explanations regarding the eligibility criteria, request process, budget issues, clarifications on the request for support form, the eligibility and compliance checks, information about other CRM supported actions, about potential partners and other similar support.

5. We are a civil society organisation established this year in March. We already have a nice running portfolio, past projects, as well as projects we currently work on. However, we are unable to provide an official annual financial report because we’re operating for less than a year. Can you please inform us whether we can still apply? 

According to Section 2.1. Eligibility of applicants of the Guidelines for applicants the criteria for eligibility of applicants are:

• be a legal person and
• be non-profit-making and
• be a non-governmental organisation and
• be established in the Republic of North Macedonia in line with the Law on Associations and Foundations and
• be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action, not acting as an intermediary and
• be with an annual turnover of up to 50,000 EUR in the last year.

There are no specific criteria about when the organisation was established. Since your organisation has been established in 2022 you are not obliged to provide any financial statements for 2021.

6. We are XXX, and we are one of the oldest registered association in Macedonia. Our work is networking of associations throughout the whole country. Can we also apply at this call?

According to Section 2.1. Eligibility of applicants of the Guidelines for applicants the criteria for eligibility of applicants are:

• be a legal person and
• be non-profit-making and
• be a non-governmental organisation and
• be established in the Republic of North Macedonia in line with the Law on Associations and Foundations and
• be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action, not acting as an intermediary and
• be with an annual turnover of up to 50,000 EUR in the last year.

7. Our organisation is registered in Veles. Can we apply with a project which will be implemented outside of the territory of the Municipality of Veles, i.e. in other town in RN Macedonia? Do we have to implement within these minimum three months the final event as well?

Section 2.2. Eligible actions: actions for which an application may be made of the Guidelines for Applicants states that the actions must take place on the territory of the Republic of North Macedonia. There are no specific criteria that the action must take place in the municipality where the applicant is registered. The activities may be implemented in one or more municipalities in one or more regions in the Republic of North Macedonia.

Concerning the duration of the proposed project, according to the criteria, the initial planned duration of an action may not be lower than 3 months with a maximum implementation period until 31st August 2023. Thus, you may set the action duration which has to be from three to eight months if you plan to start with the action implementation in January 2023.  The action duration comprises the implementation of all activities of the proposed action including the final event.

8. We are an XXX from Veles and we are eager that the EU will support the civil society through the Civil Resilience Mechanism in the Republic of North Macedonia. We have read the guidelines of the call and we have a question regarding the Annex CRM Implementation guidelines, section Equipment (purchase of small equipment). Since we are working on a specific field XXX we would like to ask you if there is a possibility to relocate the percentage of purchasing, instead small equipment we would like to purchase specialized rescue equipment (for example: equipment-60% action team compensation-20%).

Section 2.3. Eligibility of costs: costs that can be included of the Guidelines for Applicants “Purchase of small equipment, which must be directly linked to the activity of the action and justified. The purchase is limited to 15% of the total cost of the action budget. The type of category of equipment may be for administration of the action (laptop, printer, projector) but may also be another type of equipment for the specific nature of activities under the action. After full implementation of the action, the ownership of the equipment will be transferred to the CSO that has implemented the action.”

9. According to the organisation’s financial statement for 2021, the organisation should not exceed 50,000 EUR in turnover in order to be eligible applicant. In the financial statement there is a current inflow/revenue for the year 2021 as well as transferred assets/revenues from the previous year (2020). Are both taken for calculating the annual turnover?

Excess revenues from previous years that are transferred to 2021 are not taken in the calculation of the annual turnover for 2021.

10. The Ministry of Information Society categorizes jobs for all employees in the public sector, namely public service providers, technical assistants, and administrative workers. Under providers of public services in healthcare, which, according to the MISA codebook, have the code ZDR, are healthcare workers and healthcare associates. The job position healthcare associate with specialisation, has the code ZDR 03 01 D01 001 and it is under serial number 2428 in the codebook and is considered as a provider of public services in healthcare. In case a person who is on this job position is part of the action team are the costs for his/her engagement eligible costs?

According to section 2.3. Eligibility of costs: costs that can be included from the Guidelines for Applicants under Non-eligible costs is listed “Honoraria for activists and compensation for public administration staff”. Thus, if the person is already employed and paid directly from central, regional, or local government budgets then they cannot be paid as project experts or project team members.

11. In the implementation of the planned project, we anticipate the purchase of a Braille printer (a Braille printer for blind people), but the printer itself costs about 4200 euros plus costs for transport, customs, VAT and forwarding services. Can this whole cost be eligible under this call for in-kind support?

According to Section 2.3. Eligibility of costs: costs that can be included of the Guidelines for Applicants “Purchase of small equipment, which must be directly linked to the activity of the action and justified. The purchase is limited to 15% of the total cost of the action budget. The type of category of equipment may be for administration of the action (laptop, printer, projector) but may also be another type of equipment for the specific nature of activities under the action. After full implementation of the action, the ownership of the equipment will be transferred to the CSO that has implemented the action.”

12. Can CSOs’ alliances/networks registered in line with the Law on Associations and Foundations apply on the call?

According to Section 2.1. Eligibility of applicants of the Guidelines for applicants the criteria for eligibility of applicants are:

• be a legal person and
• be non-profit-making and
• be a non-governmental organisation and
• be established in the Republic of North Macedonia in line with the Law on Associations and Foundations and
• be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action, not acting as an intermediary and
• be with an annual turnover of up to 50,000 EUR in the last year.

13. Are bank fees eligible costs if directly related to action costs?

YES if any. This may only be the case with payments made to the organisation for compensation of action team and communication costs.

14. Can more than one expert be budgeted and requested if they are well justified?

According to Section 2.3. Eligibility of costs: costs that can be included of the Guidelines for applicants eligible costs are the costs for maximum one thematic expert (excluding on legal issues).

15. Does having partner in the application increase the chances for receiving CRM in-kind support?

Under this call for in-kind support it is not mandatory to have a partner. Having a partner or not is not assessed by the assessors.

16. What is the implementation procedure for this in-kind support?

Implementation procedure is explained in the Implementation Guidelines available on the website www.eu4cr.mk

17. Does the in-kind support have to be registered for VAT exemption?

NO, this in-kind support does not have to be registered for VAT exemption as all payments will be made directly by the CRM team.

18. In case the pool of suppliers provided by the CRM team does not provide the needed services, what is the procedure? What if the pool of supplies has no local coverage of services?

The organisation collects three offers or does market research and sends the full documentation to the CRM team for approval of the proposed supplier.

19. When is the expected start date for the action implementation? Having in mind that in the application must be stated number of months for action implementation, what is the maximum duration of the actions in number of months?

It is expected for the approved actions to start with the implementation in January 2023, thus maximum duration of the proposed action is eight months.

20. Having in mind that the organisations can be small and without any budget, is it possible for advance payments to be made to the organisations for covering the costs of the action team?

No advance payments are planned. The contracting authority will transfer the amount needed to cover personnel costs on monthly basis in accordance with an invoice reflecting the costs of personnel for previous month.

You can access the help desk by phone, by e-mail or by face-to-face meetings. Please do not forget to make an appointment by mail or phone if you require a face-to-face meeting.

E-mail: crm-helpdesk@eu4cr.mk

Phone number: + 389 (0) 76 202 739

Questions to the CRM Team – Help Desk are typically answered in one working day and within three working days at the latest.

Before consulting the CRM Team – Help Desk, we recommend that you review the FAQ section, the Implementation Guideline, as well as other relevant guides, visibility materials and information on our website.