Full Scholarships Available for MDF Courses in 2020!

Deadline: 24 March 2020

MDF courses are currently available with full scholarships which cover all participants support costs: travel costs, accommodation, meals, excursions, and of course the training fee. The courses are 2 and 4 weeks long. Development professionals can apply for these scholarships.

Courses

The following courses are available with Orange Knowledge Platform (OKP) or MSP sponsorship:

• Management of Development Projects and Programmes
  • Training dates: 24 August till 18 September 2020
  • Available scholarship:  OKP & MSP
• Intensive course on Advocacy and Policy Influencing
  • Training dates: 28 September till 9 October 2020
  • Available scholarship: OKP & MSP
• Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning
  • Training dates: 26 October till 6 November 2020
  • Available scholarship: OKP & MSP

What are the steps to apply for an OKP or MSP sponsorship?

Step 1 a: Check if you are eligible for OKP

• To be eligible:
  • The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, funder of the NFP OKP and MSP programmes, has set a list of eligible countries. Professionals who are nationals of and work and live in one of these 52 OKP countries (Afghanistan, Mozambique, Albania, Myanmar, Armenia, Nepal, Bangladesh, Nicaragua, Benin, Niger, Bhutan, Nigeria, Bolivia, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, Palestinian Territories, Burundi, Peru, Cambodia, Philippines, Colombia, Rwanda, Congo (DRC), Senegal, Cuba, Sierra Leone, Egypt, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Africa, Georgia, South Sudan, Ghana, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Sudan, Guinea, Suriname, India, Tanzania, Indonesia, Thailand, Jordan, Uganda, Kenya, Vietnam, Lebanon, Yemen, Liberia, Zambia, Mali, Zimbabwe, Macedonia) can apply.
  • You must not be employed by an organisation that has its own means of staff-development. Organisations that are considered to have their own means for staff development are for example:
    • multinational corporations (e.g. Shell, Unilever, Microsoft),
    • large national and/or a large commercial organisation,
    • bilateral donor organisations (e.g. USAID, DFID, Danida, Sida, Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs, FinAid, AusAid, ADC, SwissAid),
    • multilateral donor organisations, (e.g. a UN organization, the World Bank, the IMF, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, IADB),
    • international NGO’s (e.g. Oxfam, Plan, Care);
  • You must have an official and valid passport;
  • You must not receive more than one fellowship for courses that take place at the same time;
  • You must have a government statement that meets the requirements of the country in which the employer is established.
  • You have an employer’s statement that complies with the format Nuffic has provided. All information must be provided and all commitments that are included in the format must be endorsed in the statement that should be printed on your organisation’s official letter headed paper;
  • You have a good command of English or French to be able to participate fully in the training. MDF Training & Consultancy reserves the right to check this.

Priority areas for the OKP scholarships

• The Dutch Ministry who is financing the scholarships aims at sustainable capacity development of organisations working in or around one of the four focus areas: food security, safety and security, water, reproductive health and rights. You should indicate in your application when you work in one of these focus areas.
• Each of the Dutch Embassies in the OKP countries works within the policy lines of the Dutch government. Within this framework, they have set priorities for their field of work.  would like to emphasize that applications that do not fit with the Country Focus have a small chance of being selected.
• There is a further priority for people from Sub Saharan Africa and for women.

Step 1 b: Check if you are eligible for MSP

• To be eligible:
  • You are a national of, and working and living in, one of the 9 MSP countries (Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia)
  • You are a mid-career professional and are nominated by your employer, who pledges to continue paying your salary and guarantees that you will be able to return to the same or an equivalent position at the end of your fellowship period. While scholarships are awarded to individuals, the need for training must be demonstrated in the context of the organisation for which the applicant works. The training must help the organisation develop its capacity. This means that you must have an employer’s statement that complies with the format Nuffic has provided. All information must be provided and all commitments that are included in the format must be endorsed in the statement;
  • You must not be employed by an organisation that has its own means of staff-development. Organisations that are considered to have their own means for staff development are for example:
    • multinational corporations (e.g. Shell, Unilever, Microsoft),
    • large national and/or a large commercial organisation,
    • bilateral donor organisations (e.g. USAID, DFID, Danida, Sida, Dutch Ministry of Foreign affairs, FinAid, AusAid, ADC, SwissAid),
    • multilateral donor organisations, (e.g. a UN organization, the World Bank, the IMF, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, IADB),
    • international NGO’s (e.g. Oxfam, Plan, Care);
  • You must have an official and valid passport;
  • You must not receive more than one fellowship for courses that take place at the same time;
  • You must have a government statement that meets the requirements of the country in which the employer is established.
  • You must not be over 45 years of age at the time of the grant submission.
  • You have a good command of English to be able to participate fully in the training. MDF Training & Consultancy reserves the right to check this.

Priority areas for the MSP scholarships

• The Dutch Ministry who is financing the scholarships aims at sustainable capacity development of organisations involved in democratic transition processes.
• Each of the Dutch Embassies in the MSP countries works within the policy lines of the Dutch government. Within this framework, they have set priorities for their field of work. Applications that do not fit with the Country Focus have a small chance of being selected.
• There is a further priority to provide scholarship opportunities to women.

Step 2: Registration at Delta for OKP and MSP

• You only need to apply in Delta.
• Delta is an online registration system of Nuffic where you apply for a scholarship. You can register in Delta about two months before the respective application deadline.
• Before applying for an OKP or MSP scholarship make sure you prepare the documents mentioned below. This is because your application has to be completed and submitted in one go. Please use the formats provided in Step 1.

How to Apply

• Before you start in Delta, you need to have all the required documents and information ready, as you will need to submit them online during one session. Required documents are only accepted in pdf format (max 2 Mb).
• A Letter of motivation: Have this prepared so you can copy/paste it into the online application form. This motivation will weigh heavily in the selection procedure. Questions that are asked in your Nuffic application are:
  • What is the issue or problem you want to address in your country?
  • How will this course enable you to address this issue?
  • How will you address this issue with your position within your organisation?
• The required documents:
  • Copy of a valid passport
  • Employers letter, see step 1.
  • Government statement, see step 1.
  • Admission letter

NB: You cannot update or complete your information after you have submitted your application. If you want to update your information or documents, you have to register once more in Delta. You can leave the field ‘reference number’ empty.

Step 3: Selection of Candidates

The selection procedure at MDF Training & Consultancy, the Dutch Embassy and Nuffic continues as follows:

• MDF Training & Consultancy will nominate suitable candidates in Delta;
• Dutch Embassy in your country will indicate eligibility and suitability based on the Dutch ministries priorities and the Embassy priorities;
• The Dutch Embassy will rank each of the eligible candidates;
• NUFFIC decides based on the available budget who of the candidates will be awarded a sponsorship;
• NUFFIC communicates the selected candidates to MDF Training & Consultancy;
• MDF Training & Consultancy will check with the candidates whether they can accept the sponsorship;
• MDF Training & Consultancy informs non-eligible candidates of the reason;
• Candidate needs to apply for a visa at the Embassy in her/his country with a supporting letter from MDF Training & Consultancy as soon as possible.

For more information, visit MDF Courses.