Australia’s Direct Aid Programme (DAP) yesterday announced that there has been an increase in grant amounts and urged local Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) here to apply.
The announcement was made by Clint Fernandes, a Senior Policy and Research Officer from the Australian High Commis-sion, based in Trinidad and Tobago, and who is currently in Guyana on an outreach exercise.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday, held at the Foreign Service Insti-tute, Fernandes informed of changes made in the grant ceiling per project from US$30,000 to US $60,000.
He explained that the DAP is a flexible, small grants programme funded from Australia’s aid budget and managed through 66 of the department’s overseas posts in about 100 countries. The budget for the 2014-2015 year is US$22 million and it is the programme’s goal to fund at least one project in each of the 100 countries.
The application process for NGOs is currently ongoing and they have until October 17, the date for the closing off of applications. After that time, the applications will be processed speedily and NGOs will know if they would have qualified by the end of the month. Monies will be disbursed from then and continue until December of this year.
Fernandes said that in the Caribbean region since some monies are set aside specially to cater for the hurricane season, if there are no disasters then the money will be used for other projects that would have been in wait.
Representatives from 12 local NGOs attended the briefing and were informed of the objectives and goals of the programme and given guidelines on the application process.
Fernandes stressed that programmes should be geared towards poverty alleviation, community health, school and education, gender equality and women’s development, rural development, youth and agriculture and food security, among other areas.
While before, projects had to be executed within one year, this time around the programme allows for them to go over the period. In addition, NGOs do not have to limit their applications to one project as once they satisfy the requirements for a grant for more than one project this will be done.
Two projects that were funded by the DAP—a rehabilitation programme in Berbice and a cervical cancer testing and awareness programme in Georgetown—were highlighted yesterday. While grants are not directly aimed at capacity building, Fernandes said that at the rehabilitation centre the training of personnel indirectly helped in this regard.
The DAP will also be working with local government agencies in assessing which organisations qualify and if done through that respective agency how the evaluation process will be administered.
