Innovations Against Poverty has two parallel application processes; one for small grants (under €20,000) and one for large grants (€20,000 - €200,000). The process is of a competitive nature, where grants are awarded to the best business plans which meet the criteria of the programme. First, the companies need to meet the eligibility criteria (outlined in the Guide for Applicants) to be considered. Among those companies a selection process takes place which rates how well the criteria are fulfilled by the information provided in the application. Finally the applications are ranked against one another.
If you submitted an application in April, you will be notified in June whether their application is successful or not.
A guide to the IAP assessment criteria can be accessed here.
As a third option, Innovations Against Poverty can link companies and their financiers to Sida’s Guarantee programme, which offers guarantees for reducing the risks of ventures with a strong developmental dimension.
Guarantees
Companies that need additional capital to expand its activities can, if certain conditions are met, take advantage of Sida's guarantee program. Sida can share the risk with other lenders or investors, who in turn lend money to or invests in companies, through this instrument. Sida's part of the financing can be a maximum of 50 % and can only relate to loans, not shares. In addition to the cost of the loan (the interest rate), the applicant company must also pay a guarantee premium, as for any other warranty. Having Sida sharing the risk often makes borrowing possible and usually provides better conditions than normal.
How it works in practice:
1. The company must submit an project description to the IAP program and demonstrate that you qualify for IAP-support (especially development benefit, commercial viability and the level of innovation, please see eligibility criteria in the Guide for Applicants).
2. Subsequently, the company must contact an intermediary (bank, brokerage, DFI etc). Sida will not provide its guarantee to the company, only to the intermediate and only if it meets the specific conditions that Sida has on them. Within the IAP programme Sida mainly cooperates with Swedfund, a Swedish Development Financial Institution. The intermediaries will assess an application for funding according to their own criteria.
3. When the lender or investor states that an applicant is qualified for a loan, or is pre-approved, Sida makes its final consideration and decision on the guarantee.
Please note
In order to comply with the rules for public funding and OpenAid, all information that is submitted to the Innovations Against Poverty programme may eventually be available to the public. Click here for full information on the Public information act.
Email your application to the programme team at 
