The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) is the department within the United Kingdom (UK) Government that acts as a bilateral donor promoting sustainable development and poverty reduction in poorer nations. It was formed in September 2020 following the merger of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) and the Department for International Development (DfID). This article highlights aspects relating to the most recent FCDO commercial pipeline which consists of 45 projects with an aggregated value of £1.45 billion and features some of the ongoing calls for grant opportunities listed on developmentaid.org.
FCDO commercial pipeline
The FCDO regularly publishes a forward view of its potential commercial activity in the years to come with the pipeline for the next four years until 2024 being made public in August 2021 which includes every project with a value above £2 million. The document highlights 45 projects with an aggregated value of about £1.45 billion and as yet only one project has not had the budget confirmed. In terms of business area and geography, the most projects (11) are concentrated on Nigeria with a total value of about £534.9 million, followed by Protocol Directorate with eight projects valued at £85.2 million for various official delegations and expenditure. It is of note that the category with the most projects refers to World Programmes – World Aid which includes 18 projects followed by Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) with four projects.
Fig.1. Number of projects in FCDO pipeline by spend category
Read also: FCDO funding opportunities pipeline for 2021 and 2022
FCDO grant opportunities
Grants represent a form of financial assistance awarded to a developing country or a third-party beneficiary (e.g., a domestic NGO, NPO) without any obligation for repayment. Such financial contributions are intended to finance specific policies or development activities and the results achieved will remain the property of the beneficiary.
See also: Financial aid for international development
For the purpose of this article, all FCDO grants opportunities which have the status “Open” and “Forecasted” will be considered.
At the time of this analysis, FCDO has 31 grants announcements of which 10 are accepting proposals while the remaining 21 are still at the forecasted stage (meaning that no official notification regarding the accepting of proposals has yet been published). The majority of the grants (19) target Africa, followed by Asia with nine opportunities and the EU Non-27 with seven activities. In terms of sectoral distribution, a total of 27 projects, or 84% are multi-sectoral, followed by eight projects in the health sector and seven grants open for the SME & Private Sector.
Open and forecasted grants opportunities can always be viewed in the Grants section of the DevelopmentAid platform.
Fig. 2. Sectoral and geographical distribution of FCDO grants
Ongoing calls for proposals
* Only calls with deadlines falling after 1 December 2021 are listed.
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