Daphne II Programme to combat violence against children, young people and women.

What's New?

Daphne III Calls for Proposals launched

On 20 June 2007, the European Parliament and the Council adopted Decision No. 779/2007/EC establishing, for the period 2007-2013, a specific programme to prevent and combat violence against children, young people and women and to protect victims and groups at risk (Daphne III programme) as part of the General Programme "Fundamental Rights and Justice". The aforesaid decision was published in the Official Journal L 173 of 3 July 2007.

Within the framework of the Daphne III programme, the Commission has launched the following two calls for proposals on the basis of the 2007 annual work programme (PDF File 67 KB):

• Call for Proposals JLS/DAP/2007-1 Action Grants, intended to co-finance specific transnational projects. The deadline for submission of applications is 22 April 2008;
• Call for Proposals JLS/DAP/2007-2 Operating Grants, intended to co-finance the functioning of non-governmental organisations. The deadline for submission of applications is 25 March 2008.

The text of the calls, the relevant application forms and instructions are available on the Daphne III page as of the publication of the call.

What is the Daphne II Programme?

The Daphne II programme runs from 2004 until 2008 with a budget of EUR 50 million. It aims at supporting organisations that develop measures and actions to prevent or to combat all types of violence against children, young people and women and to protect the victims and groups at-risk.

The need for concerted worldwide action to defend human rights and to eliminate violence has long been recognised at different levels and in different ways.

Several measures have been taken along these lines, such as the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, the platform for action of the 1995 Beijing Conference, and the 1996 Stockholm Declaration and Agenda for Action at the first World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.

At the second World Congress against the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, in Yokohama in December 2001, the Daphne programme implemented by the European Commission was acknowledged as a very useful tool.

Why a European programme to prevent violence against women and children?

The Daphne II programme runs from May 2004 to 31 December 2008. It is complementary to programmes that exist in the Member States of the European Union, especially in the way it focuses on the exchange of good practices about violence across the Union.

Daphne represents the starting point of NGOs and voluntary organisations cooperation at EU-level in the fight against violence towards children, young people and women. It encourages NGOs to set up or reinforce European networks and helps them implement innovative projects, the results of which can be disseminated to other Member States and regions.

In many cases, these organisations offer services which the public authorities do not have the power or the ability to provide. Society will only benefit from the expertise and experience of the NGOs if their ideas and programmes are disseminated throughout the European Community and shared with like-minded organisations in other Member States.

What are the characteristics of the Daphne II programme?

The Daphne II programme supports actions to combat all types of violence against children, young people and women in Europe and all aspects of this phenomenon (violence in the family, violence in schools and other establishments, violence at work, commercial sexual exploitation, genital mutilation, health repercussions, trafficking in human beings, rehabilitation of perpetrators, etc.).

The activities that can be supported are:

1. identification and exchanges of good practice and work experience with a view in particular to implementing preventive measures and assistance to victims;
2. mapping surveys, studies and research;
3. field work with the involvement of the beneficiaries in all phases of project design, implementation and evaluation;
4. creation of sustainable multidisciplinary networks;
5. training and design of educational packages;
6. development and implementation of treatment programmes and support for victims and people at risk, as well as for perpetrators;
7. development and implementation of awareness-raising activities targeted to specific audiences;
   

From the total budget of EUR 50 Million, the Commission can also use 15% at its own initiative to improve the programme’s impact and to play a more proactive rule with a view to the dissemination of good practices. Activities to be covered are threefold. First, to develop indicators on violence, so that the extent of a number of violence phenomena can be quantified. A second axis is to extract and deduce policy issues, wherever possible, from the work achieved by funded projects, with the aim of suggesting common policies on violence at Community level and reinforcing judicial practice. Finally, the third axis aims to disseminate, on a Europe-wide scale, good practices stemming from funded projects. These activities are supported through call for proposals and/or tenders.

How does Daphne work in practice?

Following the publication of a call for proposals on the present website, proposals may be submitted by a partnership that must include at least two organisations from two different EU/EEA Member States and propose an action that corresponds to one of the above seven activities or to the priorities of the year. Projects of a sufficient quality may be co-funded by the Commission up to 80% of the total cost of the project. Further details on these elements are available in the annual plan of work and the call for proposal for the current year.

The Commission has established a help-desk to assist applicant organisations, especially those participating for the first time, to prepare their project proposals and project coordinators of ongoing projects with issues related to administrative, operational and financial management of their projects.

Who can apply?

The Daphne II programme is open to participation by public authorities and institutions (local authorities at the competent level, university departments and research centres) or non-profit making private organisations (NGOs) working to prevent and to combat violence against children, young people and women or to protect against such violence or to provide support for victims or to implement targeted actions to promote rejection of such violence or to encourage attitude and behaviour change towards vulnerable groups and victims of violence.

Organisations from the 25 Member States are fully eligible to participate, as well as those from the EFTA/EEA countries (i.e., Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein). In addition, organisations from Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia and Montenegro may participate in project activities as associate partners (in accordance with the conditions laid down in their respective European Agreements and/or Framework Agreements with the European Community for their participation in Community programmes). However, in order for organisations from these countries to be eligible for EC funding under a Daphne project, these countries must have entered into specific agreements with the Commission regarding financial participation in the Programme. As of date (December 2005), none of these countries has entered into such an agreement. Therefore, only participation without EC funding is allowed for organisations from these countries.

What is the European Commissions role in the Daphne programme?

To implement Daphne, the European Commission is assisted by an advisory/management committee consisting of representatives of each Member State and chaired by the Commission. The European Commission's role is also to implement, monitor and evaluate Daphne II and its projects. In 2004, the Commission presented a final evaluation of the Daphne Programme where the mechanisms, relevance, effectiveness and efficiency of the programme were analysed. In 2006 a mid-term evaluation of the Daphne II Programme will be presented.

How much money has been set aside for Daphne?

The total budget for the Daphne programme is set at EUR 50 million for the period 2004-2008. The annual budgets will be EUR 8.3 Million in 2004, 10.2 in 2005 and 10.5 for each of the 2006, 2007 and 2008.

Achievements to date

The Daphne has up to date (up to projects selected under call 2005) funded around 420 projects to combat violence against children, young people and women of which full details can be found on the website Daphne Toolkit which is annually being updated. A Daphne Toolkit DVD is also available, upon request, that includes all the outputs (including multi-media products) of all the projects achieved so far..

The Commission has created a logo for the Daphne Programme to allow organizations running Daphne projects to identify their participation in the programme, and users across Europe and beyond to recognize publications, audio-visual materials and other output as originating in the Daphne experience. This distinctive logo will be used by the Daphne Programme and those participating in it to identify projects and products supported by Daphne. You will find an explanatory statement of the logo (in all EU languages), as well as technical specifications for its use (in English, French and German) in the right hand menu of this website.

Based on an external evaluation report presented in 2004 analysing and summarising the activities carried out by the Daphne Programme, the Commission has published a brochure, The Daphne Experience 1997-2003 – Europe against violence towards children and women, which extracts the main findings of this evaluation and also gives the Daphne history, background information on violence and information on the achievements and outputs from Daphne funded projects up to 2003. The brochure is available on-line in all EU languages in the right hand-side menu.

The Commission carries out exhaustive studies of all Daphne-funded projects every year, by way of desk research, monitoring visits and ex-post evaluation. Synthesis reports giving an appraisal of the results and impacts achieved so far are issued each year.

The results of these studies, monitoring and evaluation of the projects enables the Commission to present illustrative cases on particularly interesting projects (be it in terms of content, management, results or impacts on beneficiaries). Furthermore, in order to disseminate wider the available information and good practice, a booklet and CD-ROM, entitled "Europe against violence: messages and materials from Daphne", was published. It compiles messages and materials produced by awareness-raising campaigns funded under Daphne. All this material is free of rights and can be used European-wide. Tips and advice for translation and use are also included.

How to apply this year?

The Commission publishes one or two calls for proposals every year around November with a deadline around mid-February or March of the following year.

The calls for proposals aim at selecting high quality projects that will be co-funded by the European Commission. Proposals made under the calls must cover one of the specific objectives and priorities listed in the text of the call.

The calls also intend to select projects aiming at the dissemination and the use of existing resultsfrom Daphne or elsewhere, by disseminating as largely as possible the existing good practices and thus raising the level of prevention and protection from violence across the Union. This call intends to select high quality projects aiming at :

Organisations wishing to apply for funding under one of the published calls, must use the provided forms (provided on-line on this website) and make sure they supply all necessary documents as explained in the text of the calls for proposals.