IFAD's Call for Proposals: Reducing Poverty through Remittances

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has issued a call for proposals from NGOs around to world to develop projects for implementing innovative remittance systems in rural areas for increasing financial access for the poor people. This program, referred to as the Financial Facility for Remittances (FFR), was earlier piloted as the Programme for Rural Development through Remittances in partnership with international bodies. The current call for proposals under FFR is to scale up the best practices and lessons learned across Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), and the Near East over a period of two years. Each project has a funding of up to US $250,000. IFAD is managing this program in partnership with the European Commission, the Inter-American Development Bank (Multilateral Investment Fund), the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, the Government of Luxembourg, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, Spain and the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

Specifically, the FFR intends to not only innovate upon and increase the remittances to rural areas, but also enhance the prospects of investments from migrants into their home counries through financing of products aimed at benefiting the poor people, developing linkages with microfinance institutions (MFIs) and building incentive-based partnerships among migrant communities for local economic development.

NGOs interested to apply for this funding opportunity need to go through a qualification and preselection process where they need to submit their organizational information to ensure that they are eligible to apply, following which concept notes have to be submitted. After the submission of the concept notes, shortlisted organizations will be requested for full technical proposals and finally the grants would be awarded. Submissions can be made online. NGOs first need to register and then submit their concept notes.

The last date for submitting the concept notes is 29 May 2009. For more information on this funding, visit this link.