Applications Open for Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund (Round 10)

Deadline: 19-Jun-23

Applicants are now being invited to submit their applications for the Round 10 of the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund (IWTCF).

Aims

• The intended impact of the IWT Challenge Fund is:
  • to provide innovative and scalable solutions to reduce pressure on wildlife from illegal trade and, in doing so, reduce poverty in developing countries.
• Applications should propose ideas that test, or scale approaches aligned to one or more of the project themes.
  • Applications should be able to make a clear case:
  • How the proposed interventions are innovative, needed and likely to be effective,
  • How they develop evidence of impact (or potential impact if scaled) and contribute to best practice for supporting successful IWT interventions,
  • How they respond to beneficiaries’ priorities and enhance the capability and capacity to create sustained impact of key stakeholders, and
  • How they will deliver simultaneous gains in tackling IWT and poverty reduction.

Thematic, Species and Geographic Focus Areas

• Innovative and scalable solutions to reduce pressure on wildlife from illegal trade and, in doing so, reduce poverty in developing countries.
  • Reducing consumer demand for IWT products
    • improve understanding of market dynamics, consumer motivations and barriers to behaviour change, generating evidence for effective interventions.
    • apply innovative tools, techniques, and technologies to reduce demand (e.g. social marketing, user-centred design).
    • build capacity and integrate behaviour change approaches to ensure that interventions move beyond raising awareness.
  • Law enforcement strengthened
    • apply innovative tools, techniques, and technologies to tackle IWT, including from non-wildlife crimes, to support evidence generation of what works.
    • facilitate necessary flow of information between partners to support IWT case development, investigation, and prosecution
  • Effective legal frameworks and deterrents are adopted and implemented
    • build partnerships and evidence to deliver against new frontiers where legislation may not be well developed or appropriate e.g. online trade.
    • garner political will and resources in developing countries/regions to develop, adopt and implement effective legal frameworks.
    • support the strengthening of regulatory frameworks aimed to disincentivise illegal wildlife trade.
  • Sustainable livelihoods for people affected by IWT
    • develop improved strategies at local and national levels to support sustainable livelihoods that benefit people directly affected by IWT, including:
      • Strengthening disincentives for illegal behaviour,
      • Increase incentives for wildlife stewardship
      • Decrease the costs of living with wildlife,
• Any species of fauna, flora and fungi impacted by IWT in Sub Saharan Africa, East and South East Asia region, or Latin America

Funding Schemes

• Extra
  • Duration: 2-4 years
  • Estimated Annual Number of Awards: 1-2
  • Type of Project: Demonstrating a clear scaling pathway, building on good evidence from smaller projects to scale further
  • Grant amount: £600,000 – £1,500,000
• Main
  • Duration: 1-3 years
  • Estimated Annual Number of Awards: 8-15
  • Type of Project: Providing good evidence, expected to deliver strong results, and demonstrate the potential to scale
  • Grant amount: £75,000 – £600,000
• Evidence
  • Duration: Up to 2 years
  • Estimated Annual Number of Awards: <10
  • Type of Project: Focussed on evidence gathering to design IWT interventions
  • Grant amount: £20,000 – £100,000

Geographical Focus: Applications are particularly encouraged from sub–Saharan Africa, East and South East Asia and Latin America.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applications must be made by the Lead Partner (an organisation), not an individual.
• Lead Partners can be based anywhere, but they strongly encourage projects to have in-country Lead Partners.
• All projects are strongly expected to seek and work with in-country partners, with meaningful and early engagement of in-country stakeholders.
• Differing from Stakeholders, Partners have a formal governance role in the project, and a formal relationship with the project that may involve staff costs and/or budget management responsibilities. Applications should be co-developed with partners.
• In contrast, Stakeholders would not have a budget management, or a formal governance role, within the project but are consulted, engaged and participate in project activities. All IWT Challenge Fund projects are expected to work with in-country partners and build in meaningful and early engagement with in-country stakeholders.

For more information, visit IWTCF.