Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

69. To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade if he will provide in tabular form the organisations awarded funding from his Department under the annual civil society funding round for 2013; the amount requested by each organisation; the amount awarded to each organisation; his views on the quality of applications; his Department's appraisal process and the criteria used to award grants. [37006/13]

Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Government’s aid programme, which is managed by Irish Aid in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, is sharply focused on the fight against global poverty and hunger, particularly in sub Saharan Africa. Our partnership with Non-Governmental Organisations represents a very important element in this effort. Funding for small to medium-sized development projects is primarily allocated through the Irish Aid Civil Society Fund. Applications are invited each year for new projects of up to three years in duration, with a maximum annual grant allocation of €200,000. The call for proposals for the 2013 funding round was issued to all eligible Irish NGOs in February 2013. A limited number of international organisations were also invited to submit proposals, based on specific policy priority areas. The particular priority areas for the funding round were the fight against global hunger, the promotion of human rights, gender inequality and the prevention of gender-based violence. Standard eligibility criteria applied, including confirmation of an organisation’s charitable status, public availability of audited accounts and a dependency limit on Aid funding of below 60%.

It is a requirement that all projects funded have a strong focus on delivering results for communities in some of poorest regions of the world. Irish Aid engages independent external professionals to carry out the technical appraisal of the project proposals and to make recommendations to an Approvals Committee in Irish Aid. All applications are appraised on the following criteria:

evidence that the organisation operates from a sound strategic policy and financial basis;

proven evidence of outcomes from previous projects;

logic of the intervention;

evidence of capacity to track results;

governance and financial oversight;

coherence with the policies of the aid programme.

In total, 23 applications were received for funding in the 2013 Civil Society Funding round and, of these, 17 were approved as set out in the following table: