WB Provides VND540Mln to Small Grants Programmes 2006

The World Bank in Vietnam has recently announced the start of the seventh year of the Small Grants Programme in Vietnam with the total amount equivalent to VND 540 million made available for in-country grants to national non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

 

The Small Grants Programme of the World Bank was created in 1983 as a way of supporting small, nonprofit NGOs.

Activities eligible for grant receipt should focus on: networking and building partnership, information sharing, capacity building, dialogue promotion, participation, and exchange of experiences on development issues. These activities may be through conferences and seminars, publications, audio-visual materials, or other networking and capacity building efforts. Small Grants must be used for a specific activity to be completed within one year of the date the grant is awarded. Priority is given to organisations not supported by the Program in previous years and organisations are not eligible for more than three grants from the Small Grants Programme within a five-year period. The maximum size of each grant will be VND 63 million.

 

Application form and guidance are available and can be picked up at the Reception at World Bank Office, eighth floor, 63 Ly Thai To Street, Hanoi, or can be downloaded from http://www.worldbank.org.vn. The deadline for submission of your application is February 15, 2006 (for those outside Hanoi, the deadline is based on the date of the post-office on the envelope). Decisions on grants will be made by the end of March, 2006 and the selected proposals will be notified shortly afterwards.

 

Since 1999, this Programme was decentralised to the World Bank office in Hanoi and 71 projects in Vietnam have been donated with total US$244,000. Vietnamese NGOs have used the money to organise seminars, disseminating information and knowledge on gender equality, Vietnam’s accession to the World Trade Organisation, labour export, legal education, HIV/AIDS prevention, and environmental protection. At the same time, the programme-funded projects organised training courses on livelihoods for poor households, disabled people, providing them knowledge about production and business to fight poverty. The programme helps projects on capability building of local NGOs.