The Federal Ministry for Environment (BMU) is currently accepting proposals for the International Climate Initiative (IKI) Small Grants Program to support small projects as well as funding institutions in developing and newly industrialising countries since 2019 and promotes their capacity development.

IKI Small Grants is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH and comprises the two funding lines "Funding Institutions" and "International Calls".

Objectives

The focus of the IKI Small Grants scheme is to provide support to the implementation of both the United Nation Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in enacting the Paris Agreement as well as to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in addressing the global loss of biodiversity (Aichi Targets and the goals of the future post 2020 Global Biodiversity Framework). With the IKI Small Grants scheme BMU extends its IKI strategy and outreach to small national, regional and local organisations to encourage active citizen involvement and local approaches to threats caused by climate change and biodiversity loss. They will be supported through the financing of the proposed projects but will also receive support through accompanying measures for capacity development of their organisations. Furthermore, organisations will be aided where possible and necessary by GIZ in enlarging their networks and integrating their activities into national policy objectives.

Project proposals must clearly address one of the IKI funding areas (although in some cases project concepts might include more than one funding area): 

• Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions
• Adapting to the impacts of climate change
• Conserving natural carbon sinks / REDD+
• Conserving biological diversity

Funding Information

• The IKI Small Grants scheme will generally select project proposals with a total funding volume between EUR 60,000 and EUR 100,000 but with the following exceptions:
  • Projects in the area of mitigation of climate change can submit proposals with a total funding volume of up to EUR 200,000, in case construction of specific mitigation facilities is an integral part of the project concept (like solar panels or wind energy turbines), which requires a higher financial input. Through this, IKI Small Grants aims for a better balance between the building of facilities and capacity development measures.
  • In specific and very well-founded cases, projects in the field of adaptation to climate change can also apply for funding of up to EUR 200,000 with the same justification as above (e.g. irrigation systems).
• Proposals with financial requests over or under the above amounts will not be considered.

Eligibility Criteria

Project funding will only be granted to:

• not-for-profit organisations
• for-profit non-government organisations if they pursue strictly non-profit objectives within the scope of their proposed project

Individuals or natural persons, one-woman/man organisations and government organisations are not eligible for funding. Also excluded are branches of organisations based in a non-ODA country.

For more information, visit BMU.