The United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Annual Program Statement is currently seeking new grant applications under its new venture capital style fund called Development Innovation Ventures (DIV).
DIV emphasizes producing development outcomes more effectively and more cost-efficiently while managing risks and obtaining leverage by focusing on scale, rigorous testing, and evidence. DIV is a mechanism for working with partners to identify and test potential development solutions, and helping to scale those that are proven to produce development impact.
Breakthrough Solutions: DIV encourages entrepreneurs, innovators, businesses, academics, NGOs, and others to submit proposals for cost-saving development solutions. DIV seeks proposals with the potential to substantially improve development outcomes, rather than produce incremental changes.
Cost-reduction and Leverage: DIV seeks applications that have ideas for addressing development challenges more effectively and more cheaply. DIV utilizes staged financing to maximize cost-effectiveness and minimize risk. In supporting projects with the potential to reach wide-scale, DIV also seeks to leverage other partners in the private, non-profit, and public sectors.
Rigorous Testing and Evidence of Impact: The DIV model emphasizes testing potential solutions and rigorously evaluating impact – often through randomized control trials – in order to identify what works and what does not, and helping scale only those solutions proven to produce development outcomes.
Scale: DIV is explicitly interested in development solutions that have the potential to reach wide-scale, i.e. tens of millions of beneficiaries.
Application Process:
DIV is soliciting applications on a rolling basis over the next year. All applicants must be legally recognized organizational entities under applicable law, and organizations. (As with all USAID grants, any organizations that are in countries that are ineligible for assistance under the FAA or related appropriations acts are ineligible).
It is expected that the bulk of work involved in successful applications will be based in developing countries. Applicants can apply directly to any stage, and those who have received funding at a prior stage do not automatically advance to the next stage. In addition applicants will be asked to identify key personnel, how other resources and partners will be leveraged, and demonstrate awareness of environmental, social, political, or other relevant context in which they grant project will take place or be adopted. Stage 2 and 3 applicants will be required to submit a more detailed scaling plan, evaluation plan, and include the detailed cost application of the grant.
Projects that can attract leverage from other partners will be considered more favorably. Applications that include a statement of support from a relevant USAID office or field mission, and/or from relevant agencies within the host country government, while not required, will be considered more favorably.
Project Examples:
- Examples of innovations that USAID/DIV is more likely to support include:
- New tools or technologies that more effectively execute against a development goal, and include testing to reach scale
- New approaches or processes that more effectively execute against a development goal and include testing to reach scale
- Innovations distributed at a price/service point that induces wide adoption (ideally within both developing countries and the United States)
- A rigorous evaluation that demonstrates the magnitude of development outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of a larger scale innovative project that will itself be funded by other partners (e.g. a Ministry of a foreign government, a NGO, etc.), and evidence determined by the evaluation will help the project reach scale.
The closing date for submission of applications is 8 June 2012. For more information, you can visit this link or visit grants.gov and search by funding opportunity number for “M-OAA-GRO-LMA-11-02000”
