Apply for financial support from Sida

Sida works on assignment from the Swedish government. If your organisation wants to apply for funding from Sida, your work must contribute to the objectives of one of the strategies adopted by the Swedish government. There must also be funds available within a relevant strategy.

The first step is to contact Sida for guidance on the possibilities of cooperating with us.

Please note that Sida cooperates with organisations, public agencies, businesses and other legal entities. Private individuals cannot apply for funding from Sida.

Sida is guided by strategies

Who you should contact depends on the relationship your organisation has with Sida as well as the type of development actor you represent.

• Turn to your contact person or focal point at Sida to explore the possibilities of additional financial support

We are normally unable to accept spontaneous applications. Please contact Sida to find out whether you may submit an application. You may turn to:

• Sida headquarters to get in touch with a geographical or thematic unit. Briefly describe the geographical and thematic focus of your project.
  Contact Sida
• The Swedish embassy in the country where the proposed project would take place. You find contact information on Sweden Abroad. Swedish embassies and consulates general on the Sweden Abroad website

Sida sometimes organises calls for proposals or procurements to find new cooperation partners. The requirements that you must fulfil are set out in the specific procurement or call.

• Calls for proposals
• Procurements

The strategies and strategy objectives set by the government are broad and Sida is responsible for operationalising them. This means that Sida determines what kind of changes are needed to achieve the strategy objectives. We also plan for how the work will be implemented and followed up.

Based on the plan set through the operationalisation, Sida decides on a number of contributions, which together contribute to the various objectives of the strategy. Contribution is the term used by Sida for the programmes and projects that we support.

Before Sida decides to support a specific contribution, we assess whether it is relevant in relation to the strategy. We also assess how each individual project complements those that are already in the portfolio.

• Initiate a dialogue with a potential partner organisation. This may be a current cooperation partner or an organisation that Sida has identified as relevant through studies, surveys and other activities.
• Issue a call for proposals to identify new partners. The call is based on a gap analysis of the strategy objectives.
• Carry out a procurement to identify new partners. The procurement is based on a gap analysis of the strategy objectives.

• fundamental principles for financial support,
• whether the programme or project contributes to the change set out in the strategy adopted by the government,
• that the programme or project complies with international principles and Sida's perspectives,
• the capacity and anti-corruption work of the organisation.

This process is called appraisal. Read more about the appraisal process at How a project is created.

How a project is created

Depending on the type of organisation you represent, there may be specific information that is relevant to you. Take a look at our organisation-specific pages for partners.