The Anti-discrimination Department of the Directorate General of Democracy of the Council of Europe is implementing a number of annual or multiannual projects financed by various external donors, including the EU/CoE joint instruments: Horizontal Facility (for the Western Balkan countries) and Partnership for Good Governance (for the Eastern Partnership countries, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Republic of Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus) and voluntary contributions.
Projects implemented by the Anti-discrimination Department / No Hate Speech and Cooperation Unit aim at assisting countries by strengthening their capacities to build inclusive societies, with a focus that goes beyond non-discrimination to include a concern for achieving full equality in practice and where diversity, including minorities, is seen as a major value. To help achieve this, the Anti-discrimination Department is supporting Council of Europe’s member states in the area of combatting discrimination, including discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), discrimination by A.I. systems, hate speech and hate crime, as well as fostering integration while protecting national minorities and regional or minority languages. This will be achieved by instruments such as legislative and policy reviews, capacity building and campaigns implemented at various levels, including regional, national, local and grassroots. Among the main beneficiaries of the projects there are public institutions, law enforcement, the judiciary, equality bodies, Ombuds offices, line ministries, as well as civil society organisations. Awareness raising and educational activities of the projects may target also specifically the general population or certain minority groups.

In order to support the implementation of these projects at a legislative and policy level, capacity building and awareness raising level, the Council of Europe is looking for maximum of 90 Providers in total in order to support the implementation of the project in the field of combating discrimination, including discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation and gender identity, racism, xenophobia, antisemitism and intolerance, combating hate speech and hate crime, artificial intelligence and discrimination, as well as in dealing with integration and inclusion policies, also at local level, targeting vulnerable groups, protecting national minorities and regional or minority languages. This call is aimed at selecting only international consultants. National consultants, with an in-depth knowledge of the domestic systems, will be contracted by other means.

The present tendering procedure aims to select providers to support the implementation of the project and is divided into the following lots:

• Lot 1: Legislative and policy development
• Lot 2: Capacity building, training and educational work
• Lot 3: Raising awareness and communicating diversity

 Lot 1 concerns legislative and policy development, which relates to specific activities such as, conducting analysis of legal acts and their implementation; reviewing national legislation in view of ensuring that laws and bylaws on anti-discrimination, combating hate crime and hate speech, protection of national minorities and regional or minority languages are aligned with the European standards; reviewing national reform plans and action plans; reviewing national policies, strategies and practice; reviewing local policies, strategies and practice; preparing comparative analyses and studies on the requested topics.

 Lot 2 concerns capacity building, training and educational work, which relates to specific activities such as, providing assessment of the functioning of the existing institutional framework; providing advice on institutional reform and setting up of relevant institutions in the area of anti-discrimination, combating hate crime and hate speech, protection of national minorities and regional or minority languages, including monitoring and data collection; providing analysis of existing educational framework and administrative procedures; preparing and revising handbooks, guidelines, strategies and other required documents; providing training needs assessment and training development; revising training and teaching curricula, textbooks and teaching standards in view of their compliance with the European standards on anti-discrimination, protection of national minorities and regional or minority languages and recommendations by monitoring bodies; delivering off-line and on-line trainings (including train-the-trainers) for civil servants, media and civil society representatives, as well as staff of independent Institutions (e.g., equality bodies) and other stakeholders, in accordance with the Council of Europe standards.

 Lot 3 concerns raising awareness and communicating diversity which relates to specific activities such as, proving needs assessments, designing and conducting surveys; designing public awareness raising campaigns in relation to anti-discrimination, protection of national minorities and regional or minority languages, combating hate crime and hate speech, inclusion and promoting tolerance, and other related topics; developing information, promotional materials and other texts/publications.

More information about this call can be found in the tender file, together with information about how to apply. Applicants will also find below the act of engagement which needs to be submitted together with other documents indicated in the tender file.
The deadline for submission of the offers is 15 November 2021.
       Tender file
       Act of engagement

 Questions and answers about the call