Deadline: 16 April 2020
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Istanbul Regional Hub is seeking applications for the Polish Challenge Fund to engage Polish Companies and Research Institutes in Development Cooperation.
The Polish Challenge Fund aims to respond to the development challenges by transferring Polish expertise and innovative solutions for SDGs to partner countries.
The objective of the Polish Challenge Fund is to facilitate the transfer of Polish know-how and innovative solutions that would address development challenges in Ukraine or the Republic of Belarus, and contribute to the achievement of SDGs.
The purpose of this challenge is to support sustainable socio-economic development and empowered and resilient communities in partner countries, the proposed Projects/solutions will address one of the following development challenges:
- Challenge 1: Green Technologies and other Smart Solutions: Introducing or improving the current state of green technologies and other smart solutions, which have positive impact on local communities and industries, in the field of energy efficiency, waste management, water management, smart water solutions, air pollution or sustainable agriculture.
- Examples:
- Early warning system about climate-related risks at the level of local community.
- Smart clean water solutions for the local communities and industries.
- Effective waste management in the agriculture sector through the innovative solutions.
- Biomimicry or nature-based solution to reduce air pollution.
- Green technologies for energy efficiency in public buildings.
- Green technologies for waste management with special focus on elimination of plastic use.
- Green technologies for sustainable agriculture.
- Challenge 2: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): Introducing or improving the current state of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and/or open data use for public services or local governance.
- Examples:
- Early warning system about climate-related risks at the level of local community.
- Enhanced business continuity in public administration through cloud services and cybersecurity standards.
- Citizen-centric local governance through innovative technology – develop solutions for the improved governance for the municipalities.
- ICT solutions for better public service delivery.
- ICT for sustainable tourism development.
Outcomes
The PCF is looking for innovative solutions that generate improvement and added value especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products. The PCF views innovation as:
- A new approach, product, idea or service that has not been tested anywhere;
- New to the beneficiary country
- Has not been applied to the sector in the beneficiary country; or
- A service or business model being introduced to a target group where it has not been applied before.
The proposed Project should have a potential for financial sustainability and scaling up. The proposed Project shall support environmental and social sustainability. This includes consideration of climate change and gender equality.
Funding Information
- The PCF will provide between US $20,000 and US $40,000 per Project. The Applicants are expected to provide in kind or financial co-funding of at least 20% of the total Project costs.
- Expected length of contract: 7,5 months, not later than December 2020.
The following types of activities will be funded:
- Feasibility studies or proofs of concept: to test the proposed solutions and/or to be able to tailor-make them. The Feasibility study in this context is understood as technical and technological solutions to the identified challenges in partner countries and their valuation and identification of concrete financial instruments for their support from international financial institutions, donors, public budget of the local governments or local or international investors.
- Solutions implementation: in case feasibility of the solutions has been tested, proved feasible and the partners identified, the Applicants can receive support for the implementation of their ideas. Within implementation, introduction of new production processes, training of local workforce, reimbursement of legal and translation services and capacity building of local suppliers, raising awareness about new products or services are typically supported.
Locality: Ukraine and Republic of Belarus.
Eligibility Criteria
- The eligible Applicants include the private sector entities (commercial companies), universities and research institutes registered in the Republic of Poland. The Applicants are required to engage with local partners to assure viability in local conditions and to promote sustainability and scalability of the solution.
- Entities wishing to apply to the PCF need to meet the following eligibility criteria:
- The lead Applicant must be a registered entity from the private sector entity (commercial company), university and research institute in the Republic of Poland.
- The Project must be implemented in one of the partner countries: Ukraine or Republic of Belarus.
- All Applicants must demonstrate their capacity to implement their proposed Project and will need to demonstrate adequate financial, material, human and other non-financial resources to implement the proposed Project within the set timeframe.
- The Applicant may partner with other entity/entities which meet the eligibility criteria herein.
- All Projects must be inclusive in nature and benefit the target beneficiaries and contribute to the achievement of SDGs rather than solely benefitting the participating entity.
- The Projects must demonstrate that the activities funded by the PCF will be in addition to the entity’s existing activities and that the Projects would not go ahead without PCF funding.
General rules for Applications
- Each entity may submit one Application per PCF country however only one Application per entity will be selected for award.
- Deadline for Application is to be strictly respected.
- In the evaluation process, only complete Applications will be accepted.
- All submitted documents must be in the English language.
- UNDP shall examine the proposal to confirm that all terms and conditions under the UNDP General Terms and Conditions and Special Conditions have been accepted by the Proposer without any deviation or reservation.
Evaluation Criteria
Eligible and complete Applications will be evaluated according to the evaluation criteria as follows:
- Innovative solution (introduction of a new idea, approach, product or service to a target group) with consideration of risks (10%);
- Development impact and Project quality including intervention logic (20%);
- Experience of management and development team (10%);
- Potential for scale up and replication (10%);
- Long-term sustainability (financial, environmental, social) (10%)
- Value for money and cost-effectiveness (30%);
- Availability of co-funding (0% for the required minimum of 20% of total Project costs, then 0.5% for every additional 1% co-funding of the total Projects costs up to a maximum of 10% = 40% cofunding of total Project costs).
Only Applications that score above 50% will be evaluated in full and considered for awarding the Project.
For more information, visit https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=63958