GRANT FACILITY 2005 Pre-notice of Call for Proposals ECHO will be seeking shortly proposals for capacity building actions for the benefit of ECHO Partners: (1) From FPA1 signatories and other non-profit-making organisations specialised in providing technical support to NGOs in the areas of financial management, human resources management, assessment and evaluation, procurement and logistics - in the fields of operation planning and design, proposal presentation, reporting tools and identification of indicators per sector of intervention in the framework of humanitarian operations. (2) From European Networks of non-profit-making organisations specialised in humanitarian aid - for assistance aiming at improving NGO internal management capacity and quality of aid delivery by providing follow-up training; - for actions aiming at networking between big and smaller organisations inducing multiplier effects and developing the role of voluntarism in humanitarian aid; - and for strengthening their own institutional capacity to provide added value to European humanitarian aid. The total funds available for both strands of the 2005 Grant Facility are anticipated to be 550.000 . The full Guidelines for Applicants will be published during the month of April in this Web page. The deadline for the submission of proposals will be one month from the date of publication. Grant agreements, ruled by the procedures and provisions of the FPA and of the Financial Regulation applicable to the general budget of the European Communities, are expected to be concluded before the end of the third quarter of the year. The implementation period of the actions will be 12 months maximum. Actions financed under this Grant Facility have to start their implementation not later than October 2005 and have to end not later than 31 July 2006.

1 FPA Framework Partnership Agreement ECHO has signed with humanitarian organisations