FAQs

In line with the philosophy of the programme to create more space for knowledge, experiences, approaches and wisdoms that originate from non-European low- and middle-income countries, the following guidelines apply to the eligibility for funding for all projects and activities supported by the programme:

Organizations based in non-European low- and middle-income countries working on water, are eligible for funding under the programme. This includes among others universities, government agencies, non-governmental organizations, grassroots organizations, and private sector organizations.

Please note that with private sector organizations we refer to ‘practitioners’ organizations that fulfil a specific role in managing water such as privatized water utilities or companies that deliver specialized technologies. (Private) consultants (even if registered as NGO’s) involved in activities typically carried out by other organizations (e.g. research, education, advocacy) are not eligible for reimbursement of their time and can only claim limited amounts of funding for out-of-pocket costs in case the added value for their participation can be made explicit.

Please also note that individuals originating from high-income countries that are employed by an eligible organization in non-European low- and/or middle-income countries are in principle not eligible to get their time and out-of-pocket costs reimbursed unless the added value of their involvement is well justified and they play a very modest role.

The following organizations are not eligible for reimbursement of their time and can only claim limited amounts of funding for out-of-pocket costs in case the added value for their participation can be made explicit and justified based on that their specific expertise is not available in the targeted countries:

• International organizations and their regional or local subsidiaries, daughter company and/or closely affiliated organizations (even if these organizations are registered as independent organizations in a non-European low- or middle-income country).
• Organizations based in high-income countries other than IHE Delft or their regional or local subsidiaries, daughter company and/or closely affiliated organizations (even if these organizations are registered as independent organizations in a non-European low- or middle-income country).

To determine which countries are considered non-European low-, middle-, and high-income countries, the OECD DAC List of ODA Recipients will be followed, which can be found here. Please note that the year of the call applies.

In case you’re unsure if your organization is eligible for funding, please contact the secretariat.

Yes, organizations in other non-European low- and middle-income countries outside the focus regions of the programme (= the Sahel, Horn of Africa, and the Middle East) can participate in a project and receive funding. For large-scale projects, it is expected that these organizations form a consortium with several organizations in the focus regions as well as IHE Delft.

To determine which countries are considered non-European low-, middle-, and high-income countries, the OECD DAC List of ODA Recipients will be followed, which can be found here. Please note that the year of the call applies.

Yes, we do encourage collaboration between different kinds of organizations within countries as well as between countries. Large-scale projects preferably involve organizations from more than one country.

Projects can be led by IHE Delft or by an organization eligible for funding in a non-European low- or middle-income country that has sufficient capacity to efficiently manage the project, including financial reporting and transferring funds to partner organizations.

Especially for medium- and small-scale projects, preferences will be given to projects led by organizations based in non-European low- or middle-income countries, preferably in the focus regions of the programme (i.e. the Sahel, Horn of Africa, and the Middle East).

Strong preference is given to projects led by women and representatives from marginalized and/or underrepresented groups in the water sector. For large-scale and medium-scale projects, the project coordinator needs to have demonstrated experience with managing collaborative projects.

Please check the specific call texts for more details and preferences regarding project coordination, if any.

To determine which countries are considered non-European low-, middle-, and high-income countries, the OECD DAC List of ODA Recipients will be followed, which can be found here. Please note that the year of the call applies.

Yes, eligible individuals working for eligible organizations can be involved in and/or lead several projects funded by the programme. Strong preference is given to the involvement of women and representatives from other marginalized and/or underrepresented groups in the water sector.

Also, eligible organizations can participate and/or lead several projects funded by the programme.

Please note that consortia with a largely identical composition of partners cannot submit more than one proposal to a call without the risk of all submitted proposals by these teams being disqualified. At least two-thirds (2/3) of the partners in a consortium need to be different from other consortia submitting to the same call.

Yes, the costs related to Postdocs positions, PhD research and/or MSc fellowships can be included in the budget as long as the candidates for these positions originate from and are current citizens of non-European low- and/or middle-income countries. In addition, it must be made clear how these positions are linked to the broader objectives of the project, including the research objectives and the capacity strengthening strategy. In the budgeting guidelines, instructions are given on which costs related to these positions are eligible for reimbursement and how to budget for these costs.

To determine which countries are considered non-European low-, middle-, and high-income countries, the OECD DAC List of ODA Recipients will be followed, which can be found here. Please note that the year of the call applies.

The programme aims to stimulate inter- and transdisciplinary collaborations on water and as such projects that primarily focus on providing technical solutions, or project teams that largely consist of individuals with natural science and/or engineering backgrounds, will not be awarded funding.

The programme has the objective to enrich knowledge on equitable and sustainable water management practices. Therefore, particular efforts will be made to engage organizations and disciplines that have been less involved in mainstream collaborative projects on water. For instance, various kinds of social scientists working on water (e.g. anthropologists, human geographers, political scientists, sociologists, historians, public administration, economists, lawyers) and non-academic organizations, including NGOs/CSOs and the private sector.

The partners involved in projects need to raise together a certain %, as indicated in the Call text, of co-funding of the total amount of funding requested from the programme. This co-funding can be matching funds coming from other donor-funded projects or in-kind contributions in terms of staff time and/or durables and/or consumables needed to carry out the project activities (e.g. office space, research and office equipment, costs for phone, internet, printing). 

E.g. if you need to show a co-funding of 20% of the funding requested and you are requesting 100,000 Euro, you will need to show a co-funding of 20,000 Euro. This means you will have a total project budget of 120,000 Euro.

Each organization involved in a project will need to specify the amount and nature of co-funding they commit to this project in a letter of support that is submitted together with the project proposal. During the project reporting the project team need to indicate how much co-funding is used in a particular year. At the end of the project, each partner organization will need to submit a letter that confirms that the co-funding they committed to the project has actually been spent on the project activities.

Please note that the co-funding comes on top of the requested budget, so the actual project budget may be larger than the maximum budget that can be requested.

Please check the specific call texts for more details and requirements regarding the requested co-funding.

Which costs are eligible for funding are specified in the budgeting guidelines.

Please also check the specific call texts for more details on eligible costs, if any, as well as indications of the maximum budget that can be requested.

In case you would like to include costs in the budget that are essential to carry out the project activities and that are not mentioned in the budgeting guidelines, you can contact the programme management team for guidance.

Costs can only be reimbursed if included in the approved budget and upon submission of cost statements including supporting documents to prove that costs were actually made (e.g. receipts).

In order to assess the composition and capacities of the project teams and to account for progressive targets set for allocating project budget, IHE Delft will collect personal data as part of the proposal evaluation phase for the Water and Development Partnership Programme. IHE Delft will process your personal details in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation of 25 May 2018. For more information, we refer you to the privacy statement of IHE Delft. Without your prior consent or other legal bases, no information will be shared with persons, companies or organisations outside the context of the Water and Development Partnership Programme. For further questions please contact our Data Protection Officer.

Teams preparing proposals for the Water and Development Partnership Programme will be asked - in the budget template - which members of their team belong to marginalized and/or underrepresented groups. Applicants need to ensure that personal information about individual team members is only shared voluntarily. In case it is sensitive for socio-political reasons to identify which individual team members belong to these groups, the applicant or the concerned individual(s) can contact the Diversity and Inclusiveness Policy Officer of the programme, Mrs Nadine Sander, to further discuss this matter. The Policy Officer can then advise how to account for this in the proposal, budget allocation and project reporting. Please note that choosing not to share personal details, will mean that these team members are considered not to belong to marginalized and/or underrepresented groups.

Marginalization refers to processes that cause some groups in society to have structurally less access to wealth (in the form of rights to resources, employment, and fair incomes), basic services (e.g. health, water, education) and decision-making power (e.g. voice, authority) than others, making it more difficult for them to achieve acceptable levels of wellbeing or to fully participate as citizens in economic, political, cultural and/or social activities. How processes of marginalization unfold and with what particular effects is specific to time and place, but in general it is the outcome of intersecting axes of socio-cultural and economic differentiation based on (among others) race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and (dis)ability. Processes of marginalization tend to be anchored in long histories of oppression, exclusion and discrimination, with the effect that resulting differences have become institutionalized and normalized. For more detailed information on this, please read Textbox 4 in the programme document.

Marginalization may also refer to specific geographical areas, with some regions receiving structurally less public attention and investments. This for instance shows in levels of public services, infrastructure and environmental protection. 
Which groups are considered marginalized and/or underrepresented differ per society and per situation. For that reason, project teams will be asked to identify such groups within the context of their project as part of the proposal development.

Unfortunately, the call documents are only available in English, and we can only assess proposals in English due to limited capacity on our end. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

After a medium- or large-scale proposal is submitted, it will be screened for eligibility according to the criteria mentioned in the call text (e.g. targeted countries, consortium composition, budget criteria, formats, and deadline). The proposals that meet the eligibility criteria will go through an initial screening to assess their alignment with the assessment criteria as mentioned in the call text. Based on this, the most promising proposals will be selected for external review. After the external review, the review reports as well as the submitted proposals will be scrutinized by the committee and used as an entry point for deliberations to decide which proposals to fund. In the final decision of the committee on the allocation of funding, the external reviews and own observations by the committee members are taken into account as well as broader considerations, like the composition of the portfolio of ongoing projects, specific call priorities (if any, mentioned in call text) and the number of proposals to be funded per theme, region, focus countries.

Once the committee has formulated its decision, they inform the IHE Rectorate of the process it followed, its considerations and its final conclusion on budget allocation to seek endorsement from the IHE Rectorate.

After the IHE Rectorate has endorsed the decision of the committee, the applicants will be informed of the outcome of the review process and will receive written feedback with the main comments and suggestions raised during the different stages review process. The review forms of the external reviewers will not be shared with the applicants. Applicants of conditionally approved projects will also be informed on the conditions set for funding the proposal.

For small-scale proposals, a similar process is followed, yet they will not be externally reviewed. Instead, the review will be fully done by the committee.

In case an applicant disagrees with the decision of the committee, the applicant is advised to first contact the programme secretariat to discuss the matter and receive more detailed insight into decisions. In case the applicant still disputes the decision, the applicant can write an appeal against the decision of the committee to the IHE Rectorate, within one month. This appeal should clearly state the ground(s) for the appeal and the expectations of the applicants in terms of mediation. The appeal can be sent by email to the secretariat of the Rectorate.

If your question has not been answered in the above sections you can contact the secretariat of the Water and Development Partnership Programme via email.