Policy Window Round 2 of Standard grants

Policy Window Round 2 (PW2) funds impact evaluations commissioned by programme managers as well as policymakers who implement development interventions.

PW2 standard grants are awarded in two phases:

• 3ie issues a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) from researchers interested in associating with the designated government or NGO implementing agency in the design and conduct of one or more impact evaluations. The selected research team receives a proposal preparation grant up to a predetermined amount to cover costs associated with activities such as travel to meet with the implementing agency, preliminary checking of administrative data, site visits, researcher time, etc. necessary to develop one or more impact evaluation designs. The proposed designs are then submitted to 3ie.
• 3ie reviews the proposals according to its policies and procedures for reviewing applications to conduct primary studies. It is 3ie’s intent, although not guarantee, to fund at least one proposed evaluation for each RFQ, conditional on the proposal receiving adequate scores on all criteria. 3ie may provide comments and request a resubmission of proposals. 3ie reserves the right not to award a follow-on research grant

3ie will award the research team a grant to conduct the impact evaluation under 3ie’s standard terms and conditions for each selected proposal, or each selected proposal.

3ie will be issuing RFQs for Policy Window grants during the first half of 2012.

For further information, visit the link.

€500,000 Postcode Lottery Green Challenge to Save the Planet

The Dutch Postcode Lottery’s sixth Postcode Lottery Challenge 2012 is now open. This international annual competition calls  on creative, innovative thinkers from around the world to submit business plans for sustainable products and services.

The competition is seeking business plans that can directly reduce CO2 emissions, score highly on design, user-friendliness and quality, and ready to be in the market in two years. Social Entrepreneurs can enter their business plans for sustainable, creative and innovative products and services. The best business plan will win 500,000 EUR, and an additional 200,000 EUR is available for one or two other promising plans.

The finalists will present their ideas before an international jury of experts and an audience of invited guests on 17 September at the multimedia conference PICNIC ’12 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. For the first time in the history of the Postcode Lottery Green Challenge, three winners will go on to New York, where the jury will announce the winner of the 500,000 EUR grand prizes on September 23rd. This announcement will take place at a dinner hosted by the United Postcode Lotteries in conjunction with the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting.

The deadline to submit entries for the competition is 31 July 2012. For more information, visit this link.

The Elsevier Foundation’s Grants for Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries

The next round of grants for innovative libraries in developing countries from the Elsevier Foundation is now open to support the efforts of libraries to enhance the quality of life in developing countries by advancing knowledge in science, the social sciences technology and medicine.

The Foundation provides one, two and three year grants to libraries in the developing countries and supporting organizations:

•        Programs to enhance library infrastructure, technology or information services in ways that significantly expand their ability to make STM (scientific/social sciences, technical and medical) information available to those who need it — researchers, clinicians, students, policymakers and the wider public.

•        Programs that expand library information resources in the developing world through digitization or preservation of information that advances science, health, the environment, and indigenous knowledge.

•        Training and education programs for library staff, students or researchers, contributing to sustainable improvements in the library’s capacity to provide STM information in the developing world.

•        Partnerships between libraries in the developing countries and institutions in the developed countries to provide technical assistance or training. Developed country partner organizations include libraries, learned societies, universities, intergovernmental organizations and other non-profit organizations.

Please note that in 2012 a new two step application process has been implemented to streamline the submission and review process. First round applications will be accepted through June 24th through the Foundation’s online application system. In early July shortlisted candidates will be announced and invited to submit a full proposal in the second round. Grant recipients will be announced in December 2012.

Deadline: 24 June 2012

For more information, visit this link.

Current International Funding Priorities of EJAF-UK

The Elton John AIDS Foundation in the United Kingdom offers grant support centred on five broad themes: Women & Children, Positive Lives, Livelihoods, Vulnerable Groups and Innovation. Funding is offered only for organizations based in in Africa, Asia, and Europe.

The Current International Funding Priorities of EJAF include:

•        Men who have sex with Men (MSM)

•        Women and young girls

•        Positive lives

Robert Key Memorial Fund

This fund is actively seeking applications for work to advance the rights or meet the needs of People Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) from vulnerable or marginalised communities.

Frontline organisations undertaking this work with the active participation of PLWHA and marginalised communities are encouraged apply.  Each application should be grounded in an analysis of local needs and be able to predict clear and measurable benefits from the proposed work for a defined group of individuals living with HIV/AIDS.

Applications will be considered for awards up to £10,000 per year and may be for single or multi-year programmes.

In order to be eligible to apply for the funding, the proposed projects need to be implemented in the following countries:

Cambodia, India, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, United Kingdom, Ukraine and Zambia.

For more information, visit this link.

DFID Grant for NGOs for Provision of Girls’ Education

The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is offering funding to support support NGOs, charities and the private sector who can find better ways to provide education opportunities to marginalised girls in the poorest countries in Africa and Asia under the UK’s Girls’ Education Challenge.

The aim of the UK’s Girls’ Education Challenge is to enable up to one million of the poorest girls in the world to enter and stay in school and receive an education which will transform their future.

The first round of funding will be open across nine priority countries: Afghanistan, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.Funding of up to £30 million will be awarded through a competitive process to NGOs, charities and private sector organisations (including consortia of organisations) who can demonstrate innovative ways of reaching marginalised girls. These are girls who have either had no access to education or have dropped out of school early and have received limited opportunities to learn.

Any successful application will need to demonstrate new ideas and cost effective approaches to reaching girls in the most difficult circumstances. Proposed projects should complement existing support to education in that country (including DFID bilateral support), have agreement from state authorities and demonstrate sustainability beyond the life of the Girls’ Education Challenge. Funding from the Girls’ Education Challenge will be awarded on the ability of organisations to deliver results for girls.

A second round of funding, called the Innovation Pilot Window, for smaller scale pilot programmes (up to £2 million) will be launched later this year. Details will be provided on this website by September 2012.

The Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) has a two stage application process:

Concept note stage: The first step is the submission of the concept note form setting out the project idea being proposed for funding. The Fund Manager will assess eligibility and overall fit with GEC criteria, and then invite successful concept note applicants to move forward to the full application stage;

Full application stage: The full applications will be used by the Fund Manager and DFID to assess potential projects and select successful projects for funding.

The deadline to submit proposals for the first round is 8 June 2012. For more information, visit this link.

The Gates Vaccine Innovation Award: US $250,000 prize

The Gates Vaccine Innovation Award is open to individuals from different discipline. Candidates from, governments, health care facilities, academic institutions, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies may be nominated.

The Gates Vaccine Innovation Award will celebrate revolutionary ways to immunize children in the poorest parts of the world. The winning innovation will be recognized with a US $250,000 prize. Lives of several people could be saved by improved access to vaccines. Vaccines are cost-effective, safe and proven to protect children from disease. Continued innovation is essential to overcome persistent challenges in reaching more children with vaccines.

Nominees will be assessed on three broad criteria:

•Developing country impact- The nominee should have contributed to the prevention, control, or elimination of vaccine-preventable disease through significant improvements in immunization quality and coverage among mothers and children in developing countries.

•Innovation and creativity- The nominee should have applied imaginative and pioneering approaches to overcome difficult challeges to immunizing children and achieving impact. Innovation is not the same as invention. Even simple ideas applied in creative ways to overcome real-world challenges can be considered innovative.

•Scale – The nominee’s innovation should be at scale or suitable to be implemented at scale within the nominee’s country and around the world.

The winner of the first Gates Vaccine Innovation Award was announced in Bill Gates’ 2012 annual letter. The 2012 Award recognizes the work of Dr. Asm Amjad Hossain, a former district immunization and surveillance medical officer in Bangladesh.

Deadline: Nominations will be accepted through 11:59 PM Pacific Standard Time on August 31, 2012.

For further information, visit the link.

The Smith Richardson Foundation announces annual grant competition

The Smith Richardson Foundation’s International Security and Foreign Policy Program announce its annual grant competition to support the research and book writing by young scholars and policy thinkers.

This competition is being carried out on American foreign policy, international security, international relations, military policy, and diplomatic and military history. The Foundation will award nearly three research grants of $60,000 each. Within the academic community, this program supports junior or adjunct faculty, research associates as well as post-docs who are engaged in policy-relevant research and writing. The program supports members of the rising generation of policy thinkers highlighted on U.S. strategic and foreign policy issues within the think tank community.

Each grant will be paid directly to, and should be administered by, a properly accredited 501(c) (3) institution. It should be the academic institution or think tank with which the applicant is affiliated.

Deadline: The Foundation must receive all Strategy and Policy and Fellows proposals by 12:00 midnight, EST, June 15, 2012.

For further information, visit the link.

UNESCO International Fund for Cultural Diversity

Deadline- 30 June 2012

Countries/Region- Developing Countries

UNESCO’s International Fund for Cultural Diversity (IFCD) supports projects that aim to foster the emergence of a dynamic cultural sector, primarily by facilitating the introduction of new cultural policies and cultural industries, or strengthening existing ones.

The purpose of the IFCD is to promote sustainable development and poverty reduction in developing and least-developed countries that are Parties to the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions.

Who can apply:

• all developing countries that are Parties to the Convention.
• all State Parties to the Convention that have determined the existence of special situations on their territory in conformity with Articles 8 and 17 of the Convention and related operational guidelines,
• non-governmental organizations coming from developing countries that are Parties to the Convention, which meet the definition of civil society and criteria regulating admission of its representatives at meetings of organs of the Convention as mentioned in the operational guidelines relating to the role and participation of civil society1,
• international non-governmental organizations, which meet the definition of civil society and criteria regulating admission of its representatives at meetings of organs of the Convention as mentioned in the operational guidelines relating to the role and participation of civil society, and which present projects with impact at the subregional, regional or inter-regional level,
• representatives of vulnerable groups and other social groups identified in Article 7 of the 2005 Convention (i.e. women and other social groups, including persons belonging to minorities and indigenous peoples) from developing countries that are Parties to the Convention.

For more information, visit this link.

University of Oulu International Master’s Scholarship Programme, 2013 Finland

Deadline- January 31st, 2013

The University of Oulu International Master’s Scholarships provide EURO 2.4 million in scholarships to academically talented international students in architecture, business, economics, education, engineering, and sciences. The scholarship is aimed at students studying for a Master’s degree in the University of Oulu two-year international Master’s programmes. The scholarship is for one academic year and covers the full international tuition fee. The University of Oulu IM Scholarship 2012 does not cover living costs. In order to retain the scholarship in the second year of study, a student must have completed 45 ECTS by the end of their first academic year. If a student does not achieve this requirement, they will be liable to pay the full international tuition fee if they wish to complete their Master’s degree programme.

Eligibility-

• Non-EU/EEA citizens who do not have a permanent residence permit in Finland
• The applicant has obtained their first academic degree (Bachelor’s or equivalent) from a recognised institution of higher education. – applicants who are in their last term/semester of studies during the application period, can apply for the scholarship
• Applicants who receive a conditional offer of study placement for a Master’s programme will receive a conditional scholarship offer.

For more information, visit this link

TRAINING Course: International Forestry Resources and Institutions, at University of Michigan

Deadline- Open

Every other year, the nine-week IFRI training course is offered at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment, with Arun Agrawal, the Director of IFRI leading the course. Guest lecturers from within the University and the broader IFRI Network regularly guest lecture.

The course explores theoretical and methodological approaches for exploring human-environment interactions. It focuses on community level forest management, and the interaction of institutional, socioeconomic and ecological factors that influence sustainability.

It also specifically exposes students to the IFRI research program and provides training in data collection methods, including participatory techniques, individual and group interviews, and forest measurement. Students apply their field research training in a forest community in Southern Michigan. Trainees also gain first hand exposure to the unique IFRI database and learn how to enter data and use queries to create datasets.

This course is designed for graduate students and practitioners who seek to learn theories and methods relevant for social-environmental research, and particularly the approaches of an active, ongoing research program applicable to the human dimensions of environmental change.
Applicants coming from low-income countries may receive stipends for some of all of the cost of the course.

For more information, visit this link

Rotary International/International Reading Association-exceptional literacy projects

Deadline- 15 June 2012

Rotary International and the International Reading Association have collaborated on an exciting new award that will give two deserving projects monetary gifts of US$2,500 on behalf of the Pearson Foundation. New literacy service projects jointly undertaken by Rotary clubs and IRA reading councils in 2011-12 may be considered for these two awards.

Rotary International and the International Reading Association know that literacy is an essential ingredient for reducing poverty, improving health, encouraging community and economic development, and promoting peace. Since 2002, RI and the IRA have combined their resources and skills to advance literacy in communities worldwide by-

• Providing books and educational materials
• Building and supporting schools
• Mentoring students
• Training teachers
• Establishing literacy programs for children and adults

Eligibility criteria-

• Rotarian applicants must be Rotary club members in good standing.
• IRA members and Rotarians must be working together to improve literacy through a project created to meet the needs of the local community or the literacy needs anywhere else in the world. Any project launched 1 July 2011 or later is eligible.

For more information, visit this link