Submit a project
Application process
You can submit your innovation at any point throughout the year. FID reviews applications as they are received. The application review process includes four core steps:
- Initial online application: Exclusively through FID’s online portal. Once your application is received, FID staff will review it in compliance with the 3 criteria. No application will be accepted outside this online process.
- Shortlisting: If your application passes the initial screening, you will be invited to the next stage of application, the “Collaborative Review”. The FID team will request additional information and documentation from project stakeholders; and interact with specific external experts.
- Selection: If your application advances from the “Collaborative Review,” it will be screened by a “Review Committee” of qualified external experts. They will give FID’s final recommendations about the funding decision.
- Decision: If approved by the “Review Committee”, the project is admitted to the due diligence stage in order to ensure that the application meets compliance requirements. The decision to award funds is confirmed based on the recommendation of the Review Committee and the conclusions of the compliance review.
Evaluation criteria
Applications are reviewed according to a selection rubric of 3 main criteria. For each of these criteria, requirements may vary depending on the funding stage.
3 main criteria
- Evidence of Impact: A credible theory of change that draws upon existing evidence and an appropriate evaluation methodology to assess the development impacts of the innovation.
- Cost and Potential for Cost-effectiveness: A credible demonstration and stage-appropriate assessment that the innovation can achieve better, lower cost, or more efficient results than alternative solutions to solve the problem, at a lower cost or more efficiently. This demonstration will be based on a detailed explanation of the costs of the innovation and an analysis of expected changes to these costs over time and at scale.
- Scale and Financial Sustainability: An assessment of the innovation’s potential for scaling-up over time without an ongoing support from FID.
Criteria by funding stage
Prepare grants | up to €50,000
- Identify which Stage award applicants intend to apply for after the Prepare grant (Stage 1 or 2).
- How we apply the evaluation criteria depends on the Stade of funding selected.
Further Information
- FID will prioritize Prepare grant proposals from applicants from the countries that are identified as a priority for French aid.
Stage 1 : Pilot | up to €200,000
- Impact: Build a strong theory of change that justifies how and why the innovation is likely to generate a positive development impact.
- Cost-effectiveness: Explain why the innovation has the potential to be cost-effective at scale.
- Scale and Sustainability: Identify the potential to sustainably reach a large number of people if delivered at scale and the method to achieve it.
Stage 2 : Test and Position to Scale | up to €1,500,000
- Evidence of Impact: Present a rigorous methodology to demonstrate the innovation’s causal impact.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Demonstrate the cost- effectiveness of the innovation during the grant period or show that such an analysis already exists.
- Scale and Sustainability: Make a compelling plan for the innovation has the potential to sustainably reach and benefit large numbers of people when delivered at scale.
Stage 3 : Transition to Scale | up to €4,000,000
- Impact: Provide rigorous evidence of the innovation’s causal impact. Such evidence must include a credible counterfactual of what would have happened in the absence of the intervention.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Prove that the innovation will be cost-effective at scale relative to alternative solutions.
- Scale and Sustainability: Clearly demonstrate that the innovation is on track to sustainably reach and benefit very large numbers of people.
Transforming Public Policy | up to €500,000
- Impact: Present a strong theory of change that justifies how and why the innovation is likely to generate a positive development impact.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Demonstrate that the activities under a proposed grant will lead to the implementation of policy innovations that will be cost-effective at scale.
- Scale and Sustainability: Demonstrate the potential for long- term sustainability of the activities proposed, including the potential to continue delivering services beyond the proposed award period.
Further details
- Eligibility is subject to a partnership with a public entity as a stakeholder of the project.
Esther Duflo Economist, President of the Fund for Innovation in Development Esther Duflo is a French-American economist. A professor at MIT in the United States, she is co-winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics, which she shares with Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer. She is the youngest laureate and the second woman to win the prestigious distinction. A specialist in development economics, Esther Duflo is world-renowned for her work on poverty. In particular, with her research group, she pioneered the use of randomized controlled trials in economics to scientifically validate what works and what does not in development economics.
Hervé Berville Deputy of the French Republic Hervé Berville is a specialist in development studies and Member of Parliament for the second constituency of Côtes-d’Armor. As a Member of Parliament, he is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Assembly and a parliamentary member of the board of directors of the Agence française de développement, where he was an international volunteer between 2013 and 2016. He is the author of