September 2020 marked the deadline for the second and last round of applications for Education Out Loud’s Operational Component 3. The call aimed at transnational alliances performing multi-country advocacy across borders. We received applications from 172 alliances based in 60 different countries and were encouraged by the vast spread of proposals from different regions. The concept notes represented a broad variety of projects aiming at creating an enabling environment for civil society within the field of education worldwide. The alliances and their respective proposals display both diversity of experience and express innovative ideas regarding advocacy and accountability efforts and activities.

The assessment of proposals began immediately after deadline and involves the following steps:

• A basic assessment of applicant eligibility focusing on whether the applicants submitted the required documentation, whether they were based in GPE countries and whether the lead applicant is a civil society organization. Approximately 45 % of the applicants met the established criteria.
• Subsequently a substantive review of the remaining proposals was conducted assessing the proposals according to the criteria listed in the application guidelines (context analysis, project strategy and action, relevance, organizational capacities and learning).
• In October members of our Regional Independent Selections Panels did a final review of the best proposals, including looking at country diversity, and ensuring a good blend of different thematic issues to be addressed.
• In January 2021 our Global Independent Selection Panel is meeting to make final decisions on expectedly no more than 10 proposals which will be offered a Year Zero grant.
• All OC3 applicants will receive a letter from EOL via email informing them on the status of their proposal. We expect to send the letters out by the beginning of February.