Social Media RFP Issued For Bosnia and Herzegovina

UNESCO and the European Union have launched a new multi-year project entitled ‘Social Media 4 Peace’ to strengthen the resilience of civil society to potentially harmful content spread online, in particular hate speech inciting violence, while enhancing the promotion of peace through digital technologies, notably social media. The increasing digitalisation of societies worldwide has led to unprecedented opportunities for the free flow of information.

There are growing concerns about how digital communication tools have become instrumental platforms to spread harmful content with a significant impact on conflict dynamics and peace. Apart from spreading hate, social media are also increasingly used to spread disinformation, misinformation and propaganda designed to mislead a population, as strongly noticed during the COVID-19 sanitary crisis. Moreover, digital technologies, and in particular social media, are not systematically used in peacebuilding processes although there are few recent examples of organisations and campaigns that have successfully mobilized social media to empower people and to allow an inclusive dialogue. The potential positive role of influencers on social media, YouTubers, Instagrammers – for instance needs to be better understood. The digital divide and/or the lack of digital literacy among practitioners and civil society in general is another explanation for this phenomenon.

Objectives

The overall objective of the Social Media 4 Peace project is to strengthen the resilience of the fragile societies to potentially harmful content spread online, particularly hate speech inciting violence, while enhancing the promotion of peace through digital technologies. In this regard, one of the main objectives of this project is:
· Enhanced promotion and support of peacebuilding narratives and initiatives through digital technologies and social media in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Scope of Work

To achieve the objective of enhancing promotion and support of peacebuilding narratives and initiatives through digital technologies and social media in Bosnia and Herzegovina, two specific outputs are planned, factoring mitigation strategies against the possible impact of COVID-19 in Bosnia and Herzegovina where necessary (submitting organizations should indicate their interest in the proposal for one or more outputs in the proposals):

1. Capacities of CSOs in Bosnia and Herzegovina strengthened to promote peacebuilding narratives online.
   1. Organization of virtual training for the selected CSOs working on peace process on use of social media to produce and share peacebuilding narratives. The trainings should target the peacebuilding Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) as well as young peacebuilders and influencers to promote and support peacebuilding narratives online through digital tools and social media. The training could focus on strengthening capacities of CSOs and targeted influencers to produce and share peacebuilding narratives online through social media and ensure effective outreach towards conflictaffected communities through tools and tips to effectively reach out to communities through the effective use of hashtags, visuals, communication techniques, influencers, etc. Monitoring on the effective use of social media platforms by the trainees for peacebuilding purposes should be conducted for 6 months after the training. If the condition on the ground is suitable, a mixed-approach with in-person training should resume at some point. 
2. Civil society empowered to be more resilient to harmful content in the 3 target countries.
   1. Organization of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) virtual trainings for the youth organizations and young people to empower the youth to be more resilient to harmful content, notably disinformation and hate speech online. The MIL training should target and empower youth organizations and CSO with MIL skills to strengthen their resilience to harmful content.
   2. Development awareness-raising campaign to have the trained young people involved in producing/sharing narratives to counter online harmful content. Following the trainings, the trained youth organizations will be involved in the awareness raising campaign production and sharing of narratives online.

Your offer comprising of technical proposal and financial proposal for one or both phases of activities in the TOR should reach the following address no later than 28 January 2022 via email in PDF format, courier and person:

Antenna in Sarajevo, UNESCO Regional Bureau

for Science and Culture in Europe

Address: Zmaja od Bosne bb, UN House, Sarajevo

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Email: m.nikolic@unesco.org

Ref: 549INT5001/BIH/2

Agencies to consider include Edelman PR and Finn Partners.