News, 17.10.2023

Call for discretionary government grant applications for organisation of continuing training on international environmental law and diplomacy

Finland’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs will open a call for discretionary government grant applications for the organisation of continuing training on international environmental law and diplomacy. The call for applications will be open for universities and other organisers of continuing training from 17 October to 3 November 2023 at 16:00.

The Ministry for Foreign Affairs will award a discretionary government grant for the organisation of continuing training on international environmental law and diplomacy. The grant should be used in the period between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2026. The timing of the period of use will be confirmed in the grant decision. A total of EUR 300,000 has been reserved for the grant.

The discretionary government grant is meant for the organisation of a continuing training course on international environmental law and diplomacy in Finland or abroad. Part of the grant must be used to carry out an external evaluation of the activities and results of the training course.

The grant will be awarded for training which is designed for people who attend international negotiations related to environmental agreements (e.g. public officials, representatives of CSOs and researchers) and which increases interaction between negotiators representing developing countries and industrialised countries. One requirement for receiving the grant is that the training supports developing countries’ capacity development, focusing on their participation in negotiations on environmental agreements and in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of agreements. Another requirement is that at least half of the participants in the training course are from developing countries. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs encourages the use of training methods and materials that the participants could use at home for training their colleagues and others.

The grant will be awarded to a university or other organiser of continuing training. It will be awarded under budget item 24.30.66, budget allocation table 4, non-country specific development cooperation. The budget allocation table is used to award grants for higher education programmes, among other targets.

The maximum amount of the discretionary government grant is EUR 300,000. It will be awarded to one operator for the organisation of a training course in 2024–2026. The discretionary government grant may cover at most 80 per cent of the total costs of the training. The applicant must specify in the application how it will cover the remaining share of the total costs. When the Ministry for Foreign Affairs makes it decision to award the grant, it lays special emphasis on the following matters:

  • The applicant’s general expertise in environmental law and diplomacy;
  • The applicant’s previous experience of organising continuing training on environmental law and diplomacy in Finland and/or abroad;
  • Clear definition of the continuing training and its target group, objectives, themes and implementation, taking into account the United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Paris Agreement and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework;
  • The way the training plan presents the structures and negotiation mechanisms of key international agreements as well as content matters, such as environmental safety requirements, links between climate change and conflicts and international environmental administration;
  • The size of the target group, including methods used to find and contact developing country participants and to market the course in developing countries (the 25–30 participants, of whom at least half should be from developing countries; women’s participation is specifically appreciated);
  • A plan concerning cooperation with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs at the different stages of the course covering the first year and a preliminary plan for the course implementation in 2025 and 2026;
  • A preliminary plan for carrying out an external evaluation of the training, including a cost estimate.

Applications must be submitted in writing. They must include an informal description of the content of the continuing training in 2024 and a preliminary description of the content in 2025 and 2026 as well as a preliminary estimate of the total costs of the project broken down by cost item (including the evaluation).

Applications must include a clarification of the names of the persons authorised to sign for the applicant (extract from the Finnish Trade Register or similar) and information on how the applicant will finance the share of the total costs of the training not covered by the grant. Curricula vitae of the persons responsible for the continuing training (at least two persons holding a PhD or a higher degree) must be included.

Applications together with their appendices must be sent to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs by Friday 3 November 2023 at 16.00 by post to the address below or by email to kirjaamo.um(at)gov.fi. The email must be titled ‘Valtionavustushaku 2023, KEO-60’. Applications that arrive after the deadline will not be examined.

The Ministry reserves about three weeks for the processing of the applications. The Ministry will inform the applicants of its decision by email.

Address: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, KEO-60, PO Box 23, FI-00023 Government, Finland

Visiting address of the registry: Government service point, Ritarikatu 2 b, service hours from 8.00 to 16.15. On the envelope: Ministry for Foreign Affairs/ KEO-60.

 

The MFA has received the following inquiries during the application process:

 

Can applications be submitted in English?

Yes, applications in English will also be examined.                       

How comprehensive should the requested evaluation be?

MFA has reserved a maximum of 30 000€ of the whole grant for the purposes of the evaluation. It is on the responsibility of the applicant to propose a suitable methodology, scope  and budget of the evaluation. MFA appreciates evaluation on the impacts of the course(s) organized, as regards to the objectives of the training, applying the evaluation criteria of the OECD DAC(Link to another website.).

 

Applicable legal basis:

Act on Discretionary Government Grants (688/2001)