Daphne II Programme to Combat Violence Against Children, Young People and Women.

What's New?
The 2006 call for proposals is open. The deadline for submission of the proposals is 10 February 2006. The documents related to the call for proposals, as well as the guidelines, are available in 20 languages in the right hand menu of this page. In this same menu, you find other useful information to prepare your project proposals, including a link to the Daphne toolkit (a website with information on past Daphne projects, their results and impacts), instructions on how to use the Daphne helpdesk (PDF file 116 KB) (daphne-helpdesk@transtec.be) and an updated FAQ file. We are regularly updating this website so please consult it frequently.

Daphne now has its own logo!

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.

New publication: The Daphne Experience 1997-2003 – Europe against violence towards children and women. 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 broschure 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 broschure is available on-line in all EU languages in the right hand menu.

Call 2005: The proposals received under the 2005 calls for proposals have been evaluated and the applicants have been informed in writing about the result. If you have not received this letter, please contact the Daphne Helpdesk.

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 closely follows the lines of the first programme, and covers the same areas of violence in favour of the same beneficiaries and supports similar activities: networking of organisations, exchange of good practices and awareness raising actions.

However, Daphne II proposes a number of improvements with a view to enhancing the impact of the programme :

The budget is EUR 50 Million for the period 2004-2008. This increased budget allows facing both the consequences of enlargement to 10 new countries and the large demand from organisations. The annual budgets will be EUR 8.3 Million in 2004, 10.2 in 2005 and 10.5 for each of the next three years.

The activities that can be supported (with the Call I for specific projects) are:

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

From the total budget of EUR 50 Million, the Commission will 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 will be supported with the Call II for transfer and adaptation of results and by calls for tenders.

Finally, the Commission established a help-desk to assist non-governmental organisations especially those participating for the first time, to elaborate their projects, to liaise with other partners, to report to the Commission and to use and benefit from the Daphne acquis.

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 Member States and propose a work 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 for the current year.

Who can apply?
The Daphne II programme shall be open to participation by public or non-profit making private organisations and institutions (local authorities at the competent level, university departments and research centres) 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, in accordance with the conditions laid down in the EEA Agreement and to organisations from Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey. For these last three countries, a specific agreement must be first signed between the country and the Union before their organisations can be funded. However, the participation of these organisations without a funding from the European Commission is allowed.

What is the European Commissions role in the Daphne programme?
To implement Daphne, the European Commission is assisted by an advisory 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 2002, it presented a mid-term report to the European Parliament and the EU Council of Ministers on the first two years of implementation. In 2004, the Commission issued a final evaluation of the programme where its mechanisms, relevance, effectiveness and efficiency were analysed.

How much money has been set aside for Daphne?
The total budget for the Daphne programme is set at EUR 50 million.

Achievements to date
Since 1997, Daphne funded 303 projects, of which full details can be found on the DVD Daphne-toolkit and on the corresponding website.

Exhaustive studies have been carried out by way of monitoring and interviews of all the projects of a given year. Synthesis reports giving an appraisal of the results and impacts achieved so far were issued each year.

These studies, together with the constant 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. By the beginning of 2005, a DVD will be available, that includes all the outputs of all the projects achieved so far.

How to apply this year?
From 2004 onwards, Daphne II will publish two calls for proposals every year around November with a deadline around mid-February or March of the following year.

The first one (Call I) follows closely the lines of the calls undertaken under Daphne I. It aims at selecting high quality projects that will be co-funded by the European Commission. Proposals made under this call must cover one of the specific objectives and priorities listed in the text of the call.

The second one (Call II) intends to select high quality projects aiming at the dissemination and the use of existing results. The goal of this call is to disseminate as largely as possible the existing good practices. It seeks at raising the level of prevention and protection from violence across the Union. This call intends to select high quality projects aiming at :

-direct application, use or dissemination of existing good practices (developed under Daphne or elsewhere);
-developing indicators on violence and related data collection;
-synthesis reports and extraction of policy issues from the work achieved by the Daphne funded projects.

Organisations wishing to apply for funding under one of these calls, must use the provided forms (here on the right hand column) and make sure they supply all necessary documents as explained in the text of the calls for proposals. It should be emphasised that all documents will be available in all 20 official languages, gradually.