Community spaces, known locally as hatis, are elevated grounds scattered within Bangladesh’s haor wetland regions. With the support of the IKI Small Grants project ‘Climate-resilient Infrastructure for Sustainable Community Life in The Haor Region of Bangladesh’, several hatis will be equipped with protection walls and wave-breaker plantations. These climate-resilient infrastructures serve as protection for vulnerable communities.

This August, Ms. Sharifa Khan, Secretary of the Economic Relations Division (ERD), visited the Sunamganj Haor region to see adaptation measures to protect community spaces from flash flooding.

The ERD secretary requested Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) implement the project immediately. She expressed her willingness to approach other development partners to upscale similar adaptation measures.

The ‘Improved Coordination of International Climate Finance’ project supported PKSF in developing the project proposal. PKSF received a grant of about one million euros from the IKI Small Grants Programme, envisioned to be upscaled to a project proposal for the Green Climate Fund (GCF) amounting to an estimated 50 million US-dollars.

The Khan’s visit underlines the potential of this project to advance much needed climate change adaptation measures locally. The experience won in this IKI Small Grants project can subsequently be applied on a broader scale.

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Recent events show that the project of IKI Small Grants and NCPC meets current needs: Last year, Sri Lanka was hit hard by a shortage of imported oil, resulting from the global energy crisis. Petrol prices have risen by 300 per cent and electricity tariffs for some sectors by up to 800 per cent, resulting in kilometres long lines of citizens waiting in front of petrol stations.

With its project, NCPC targets small and medium-sized companies that consume a particularly large amount of energy. These companies receive professional advice on energy efficiency over a period of two years. The declared goal is to achieve as many ISO certifications as possible, to reduce emissions and help Sri Lankan companies to move towards a green transition. Within the frame of the launching event, selected companies received official certifications.

These 25 companies were selected out of 115 applicants from a public call for applications and now enjoy the benefits of intensive energy consulting by NCPC throughout the next two years.On top of that, carrying out energy audits in production facilities and use them to identify potential energy savings fits perfectly into the mitigation approach of the International Climate Initiative. The project’s innovative approach has high potential for upscaling in other contexts.

The IKI Small Grants project ‘Strengthening youth and women’s actions for the sustainable protection of the Guma Water Catchment’ in Sierra Leone shows why young people are essential in tackling the climate crisis. The project focuses on environmental education and creation of alternative livelihoods. By involving young people, women and forest guards, it ensures the protection of the forest reserve, tackles root causes of forest degradation, and provides the target group with alternative livelihoods.

Ahmid C. Jalloh, founder of YARDO, talks about why youth are pivotal in preserving the environment and their way to become part of IKI Small Grants.

Tanzania is one of the countries with fast growing economies in Africa. Its economy relies on the climate sensitive sectors such as agriculture, livestock, fisheries, trade, tourism, and manufacturing. In addition, Tanzania is a very biodiversity-rich country hosting six out of twenty-five globally known biodiversity hotspots. This biodiversity richness is threatened by several drivers and pressures from anthropogenic activities such as habitat conversion, loss, degradation and fragmentation, and over-exploitation of species. The three IKI Small Grants projects, selected out of 450 applications, will contribute to tackle these challenges.

About the launched projects

The project ‘Empowering female fish workers for participatory coastal management’, implemented by Sea Sense, focuses on addressing marine biodiversity loss in selected coastlines of Tanzania. The project works towards mainstreaming marine biodiversity conservation and protection in local governance systems. Through capacity building at a local level, coastal communities are empowered to become agents of change for marine biodiversity.

The project ‘Developing risk awareness through joint action for the middle Msimbazi river’ aims to increase the adaptive capacity of local communities who live in poor quality housing in low-income informal settlements, prone to floods. The project works to increase the residents’ capacity to take action to mitigate the impact of severe weather on lives and property. In particular, the project aims at improving accessibility, understanding and mobilisation on the importance and use of weather and climate information. The Centre for Community Initiatives (CCI) developed and implements this project.

The third project works on strengthening multi-stakeholder cooperation in addressing climate change on the southern part of Tanzania where climate change seriously affects agriculture production. The project ‘Multi-stakeholder climate action plan in Njombe’ is implemented by Southern Highlands Participatory Organisation. SHIPO aims to increase awareness and participation of local stakeholders in implementing jointly agreed climate change and environmental conservation activities.

Six hundred and eleven – that is the enormous number of applications submitted for the fourth International IKI Small Grants Call for Proposals! The call closed in March 2023, and the IKI Small Grants team will now look at each of the 611 applications. All complete project applications will undergo a technical and legal/ commercial evaluation. 

Compared to the third Call for Proposals with its 477 applications, the current  Call witnessed an increase of more than a quarter. Even if the reasons can only be guessed, one thing is clear: interest in funding for small projects is high!

And that applies to all continents: The three countries with the most submissions are Kenya, Indonesia, and Colombia. Various regions are represented in the top 13 with Nepal, Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, India, Ghana, Mexico, Malawi, and Peru.

Funding areas: major differences

There are major differences in the funding areas to which the applications are assigned: Around half of the projects submitted want to be active in the area of adapting to the impacts of climate change, followed by mitigation of GHG emissions, conserving biological diversity, and conserving natural carbon sinks/REDD+.

Towards the selection of projects

What are the next steps after the evaluation of the projects? In close consultation with the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the Federal Foreign Office, the IKI Small Grants team will select the best project ideas. Only after completing the selection process, all applicants are informed whether their application has been selected for funding.

Are you planning to apply for the 4^th call for proposals by IKI Small Grants? Are you interested in tips and tricks for formulating your project outcome, outputs, and indicators? Then take a look at our short tutorial. This video offers insights about the key criteria when formulating your project objective and project results.

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The video gives a quick overview of the current international standards of results-based logical frameworks. It explains how to formulate outcome, outputs, and indicators. Following the instructions may also increase your chances of being selected in the current call for proposals. The video includes an example that reflects projects currently implemented under IKI Small Grants. On this basis, you can discuss with your team how your project can achieve its project objective and outputs in the most logical and effective way.

We also recommend our 1-hour webinar on the logic of results-based project management. Find the recording here:

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Please feel free to share the recordings with others!

From 30 November 2022 to 15 March 2023, small organisations are invited to apply for funding of climate and biodiversity projects.The call for proposals is addressed to small regional, national, and local organisations based in ODA-eligible countries (except for current and potential EU member candidates except for Ukraine). IKI Small Grants provides funding between 60,000 and 200,000 euros and is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Government.

Ambitious project proposals should focus on one or more of the following IKI funding areas:

• mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions
• adaptation to the impacts of climate change
• conserving natural carbon sinks with a focus on reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation
• conserving of biological diversity

Small-scale projects on climate and biodiversity action worldwide

Under the IKI Small Grants programme, many projects are to be selected in the coming years via international calls for proposals and funded with up to 200,000 euros each. Three calls for proposals have already been implemented, and more than 90 projects in over 40 countries have been selected so far. You can find an overview of the different projects in our project section.

Implement local initiatives and strengthen the organisations behind them

After passing a one-stage selection procedure, the selected organisations are accompanied and supported by Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, which implements the IKI Small Grants Programme on behalf of Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the Federal Foreign Office. IKI Small Grants aims at strengthening the capacities of the implementing organisations. In addition to the individual support offered by GIZ during the project implementation, all applicants are supported in measures to further developing their organisation’s capacities.

In this year’s call, IKI Small Grants further explicitly encourages applications that refer to the current UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, promote gender equality and/or engage youth.

Further information including the funding information and application guidelines can be found at our application section.

Are you an organisation that has been selected for funding by IKI Small Grants? Are you interested in the current international standards for the results chain logic model? If you want to know how to draft a results chain logic that perfectly fits small scale projects, we highly recommend our latest webinar session.

The IKI Small Grants webinar on results-based project management was held on 23 November 2022. Over 30 organisations from all over the world participated. The webinar featured some crucial knowledge about the current international standards of results-based project management. It explained how to formulate outcome, output, and indicators, using on-ground examples that reflect projects currently implemented under IKI Small Grants. Furthermore, using break-out sessions and open forums it offered plenty of exchange and peer-learning opportunities between the different implementing organisations.

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Being able to draft a results chain logic from scratch, understanding its value for project management, and reporting is a crucial step for organisations entering the climate and biodiversity sector.  Especially the information on “SMART” indicators are the key to an effective results chain logic model. The information covered by the webinar can be used for future project proposals and thus help to obtain international funding.

 IKI Small Grants further recommends different learning sessions from the digital learning platform atingi. The Platform provides plenty of professional trainings ranging from monitoring and evaluation, reporting, and fundraising including further sessions on results chain logic. The platform is free to use and available through the following link: atingi.org

Please feel free to share the webinar with whoever might be interested.

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The IKI Small Grants Programme has selected 25 climate and biodiversity projects in its third international call for proposals. Each project will receive between 60,00 and 200,000 euros of funding. 

Small sub-national, national, and regional organisations based in an ODA*-eligible country were invited to apply directly for funding to implement local or regional climate change and biodiversity projects. Out of 475 applications from all over the world, 25 particularly ambitious and sustainable projects in 18 countries were selected for funding. 

The selected projects’ total funding volume is 3.5 million euros and includes projects in the funding areas of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, adapting to the impacts of climate change, conserving biological diversity, and conserving natural carbon sinks with a focus on REDD+.  

Many projects strengthen particularly vulnerable groups and explicitly aim to improve the situation of women and youth. For example, a project in Kenya aims at equitable access to climate-related information and adaptation tools for women farmers. In Nepal, a sustainable business environment for clean cooking stoves will at the same time reduce greenhouse gas emissions, firewood consumption, and strengthen local women cooperatives. The upscaling of climate-smart agriculture models is the goal of a project in Mexico, where indigenous knowledge is passed on to students to reduce vulnerability to climate change and improve the communities’ livelihoods. 

IKI Small Grants is part of the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German Federal Government and is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. Since 2022, IKI is implemented by the Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK) in close cooperation with the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection (BMUV) and the Federal Foreign Office (AA). 

*ODA = Official Development Assistance