UK Aid Connect

Closed: UK Aid Connect will support consortia to create innovative solutions to complex development challenges that deliver real change to poor people’s lives.

The fund is not currently open for applications.

What the fund will achieve

The world has seen substantial success on poverty reduction. However, 1.2 billion people remain in extreme poverty. There is a growing recognition that the problems facing the poorest most excluded people and the global challenges underlying those problems, are complex and interconnected. No single development actor has all the answers. Coalitions and collaboration bring new and creative ideas, innovation, better results and opportunities through pooled ideas, skills and resources. FCDO wants to bring those qualities together in coalitions that address key development challenges in the following priority thematic areas:

Phase 1

  • promoting sexual and reproductive health and rights
  • disability inclusion
  • working towards global security and stability
  • building civil society effectiveness

Phase 2

  • building open societies
  • tackling child labour and modern slavery
  • addressing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inclusion
  • supporting tolerance and freedom of religion or belief

The consortia will undertake action research, trialling new approaches and testing the viability of scaling up effective approaches to produce rigorous and influential evidence and learning. The specific results delivered by each consortium will in part be determined by the nature of the issues to be addressed in those particular policy and thematic areas. However, we envisage the consortia will produce rigorous and influential practical evidence, knowledge and learning. The rigorous evidence and learning produced by the consortia will be used to implement and scale up these innovative solutions to deliver real change to poor people’s lives in low and middle income countries.

How to apply

Please refer to the terms of reference for full details. Applicants must submit a Microsoft Word version of their proposal and associated documents using the templates provided below, by email, to UKAidConnect@dfid.gov.uk

Background information on the fund

The Terms of Reference for each of the themes will set out the background on UK Aid Connect and the process for submitting the proposal. A strong proposal will provide quality ideas and articulate how those ideas will bring about lasting change. We do not expect to see a full programme design. This will be undertaken with FCDO during the co-creation phase.

FCDO will convene a series of open meetings to discuss the key development challenges in the thematic areas. Information on these events are set out in the information note.

Project documents

Terms of reference

Programme Summaries

Frequently asked questions

Dialogue meetings

Contact

Please e-mail enquiries to UKAidConnect@dfid.gov.uk

Updates to this page

Published 6 July 2017
Last updated 11 October 2019 + show all updates
  1. Revised consortia grants formally announced list, added

  2. Updated Consortia Grants formally announced 12 April 2019

  3. Consortia Grants formally annouced

  4. Deadline for applications has passed, the funding is not currently open for applications.

  5. Revised version of Frequently Asked Questions added

  6. Summary of dialogue meetings and presentations added.

  7. New terms of reference added.

  8. Terms of Reference: Promoting Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) now added.

  9. First published.