The Scottish Government’s International Development Fund is seeking applications for funding under its new South Asia Development Programme covering international development work in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
The main objective of the programme is to address poverty and contribute towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals through sustainable economic development. The sub-themes considered under the programme include:
- Gender equality and the empowerment of women, i.e. the project addresses the discrimination that exists against women and girls and aims to promote gender equality.
- Capacity building and skills exchange, i.e. the project empowers communities through skills, knowledge or training.
- Community-led approaches and initiatives which seek to build civil capacity, i.e. the project directly involves local communities and helps build civil capacity.
The Programme is also interested in supporting a number of “small innovation or pilot projects” that test new approaches and ideas in these countries.
The Programme will fund only those organizations which have presence in Scotland. But NGOs in these countries can still submit proposals as a consortium with a Scottish organization as a lead agency. NGOs in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka can contact Scotland-based organizations or vice versa to submit a proposal to respond to this opportunity.
A minimum total project cost of £5,000 per financial year has been set for all project applications the maximum project cost of £400,000 for standard projects spread over three financial years and the maximum cost of innovation projects has been set £20,000 spread over two financial years. All proposals should schedule 1 July 2010 as the start date of the project.
The application form for applying this funding is available at the below link. The deadline to submit the applications is 26 April 2010. For more information, visit this link.
