Lisa Cornish - Mar 10 2018
New DFAT funding to focus on shared value in India
Fruit carts in Goa, India. Photo by: DFAT / CC BY
Fruit carts in Goa, India. Photo by: DFAT / CC BY

From Feb. 26, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade will open a new round of funding as part of the Business Partnerships Platform, focused solely on ideas supporting economic and social development in India.

The BPP is an initiative of Australia’s aid program that aims to promote private sector engagement in development by contributing money to support, advance, and scale projects that are both commercially viable and socially impactful. Previously, there have been two rounds of the BPP supporting a total of 19 initiatives responding to a range of development challenges including agriculture, finance, and health. But so far, projects from India have been excluded from the geographic scope of funding.

The new round will see funding for four or five partnerships, with a particular need for projects supporting agribusiness, health as well as energy and resources, in line with DFAT’s program of work to support the economic development of India.

The BPP is managed on behalf of DFAT by Palladium, and prior to the new round being open to applicants Devex spoke to Palladium’s BPP team leader Nicholas Wolf on the reasons for an India focused round and his advice to applicants on the pitfalls to avoid.

This article was written by Lisa Cornish for Devex. Please click here to read the full article.