About the Business Scout Fund
The Business Scouts for Development (BSfD) programme, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), promotes sustainable and responsible private sector engagement in around 40 developing and emerging countries worldwide. For this purpose, sequa organises idea competitions in which business organisations and partner institutions of the BSfD program can participate with creative project concepts. The newly developed solutions and services in the context of BSF projects should support the implementation of the strategic missions of the BMZ (Just Transition, Feminist Development Cooperation, Leave no one behind, Covid-19-Recovery) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as well as the goals of the BSfD programme. The Business Scout Fund is implemented by sequa as part of the BSfD programme on behalf of GIZ.
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Project Ideas: Eligibility and Evaluation Criteria
The target group of the Business Scout Fund competitions are primarily business organisations and other partner institutions from the BSfD network. Other providers, such as companies or other institutional partners can participate in the projects as service providers in cooperation with the BSfD network. In principle, the project ideas must pursue relevant development objectives.
Proposals are particularly welcome which
- contribute towards the transition to a climate-friendly and fair economy (Just Transition);
- promote equal opportunities for all people and help overcome discriminatory structures and role models (Feminist Development Policy);
- promote the introduction and implementation of digital infrastructure and processes in developing countries;
- are particularly innovative or a creative mix of existing elements; and
- make international supply chains fairer and more sustainable as well as supportive for sustainable agricultural and food systems (Leave no one behind).
Other positive criteria are
- establishing and embedding of sustainable services and structures;
- piloting of scalable, regional approaches or approaches that can be transferred to other countries;
- linkages to national or regional development strategies and other (giz) projects;
- a particularly high development impact and visibility of project results;
- projects that increase the performance and structures to cope with current crises (Covid-19, war in Ukraine, refugees and migration).
In addition to content-related criteria, the economic efficiency and effectiveness of the planned project implementation also play an important role in the evaluation of project proposals.
General Conditions: What else needs to be considered?
If you would like to develop a project idea with the above objectives, you should consider the following general requirements:
- Financial volume 50,000 EUR up to 100,000 EUR (net)
- Planned implementation period no longer than nine months
- Target countries are all countries of the reform concept "BMZ 2030" and countries where a Business Scout is working.
- A Business Scout is involved in the development and submission of the project idea.
How can you get involved and what are the next steps?
sequa regularly organises idea competitions in the form of calls for proposals. The project ideas are evaluated by sequa according to the criteria mentioned above. In a second step, the most suitable projects are selected by an expert jury, also taking into account available funds. sequa subsequently informs the competition participants about the decision. There is no legal claim to the selection of a project idea.
sequa then signs a service contract with the selected providers for implementation, in which the services to be provided are detailed on the basis of the submitted project idea together with the implementation plan and payment terms. The provider is responsible for the implementation of the project. At the end of the project, the provider prepares a short report on the delivered activities and impact of the measure and sends it to sequa together with the invoice.
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