Administrative guidelines for Danish grants for Danish civil society organisations qualifying as ‘strategic partners’

In 2017, the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) redesigned its support to Danish civil society organisations engaged in international development cooperation and humanitarian action. In lieu of annual appropriations under the Danish Finance Act for a limited number of organisations, all organisations meeting a set of minimum criteria were invited to apply for a Strategic Partnership with the MFA covering the period 2018-2021.

A basic premise for the redesign was that it would not weaken or jeopardize the respect for the independent nature of civil society organisations. As such, the engagements to be funded would spring from existing mandates, strategies and programmes of applicant organisations. While the applicants were measured against the degree to which the proposed development and humanitarian engagements were aligned to the 2017 Danish Strategy for Humanitarian Action and Development Cooperation, the review of applications also included an assessment as to whether the proposed engagement for funding was coherent with the applicant’s overall mandate, vision and strategy for international activities. This was found to be the case for all of the applications received from the 17 organisations, including one consortium, selected as strategic partners.