Sida is focused on using Challenge Funds to finance entrepreneurs and innovators who are willing to contribute to economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Challenge funds offer Sida the opportunity and flexibility to support civil society and private sector initiatives to develop innovative solutions to development problems. Close to 60% of Sida funding is distributed through Global Challenge Funds.
IPE Triple Line was engaged to work with Sida to update its guidelines for Challenge Fund design and management. The first stage of the assignment was to map Sida’s global, regional, and bilateral development contributions to identify relevant Challenge Funds and programmes that are sufficiently close to a Challenge Fund and have a bearing on the guidelines.
We then facilitated a co-creation process to rewrite the guidelines, drawing on Sida’s latest experiences and learning from relevant evaluations and reports. The final stage included two launch events — one focused on Sida’s staff and one for a wider audience including other donors, impact investors, fund managers, and entrepreneurs.
Key Objectives
- Development of comprehensive guidelines for Sida personnel and partners engaged in the design and implementation of challenge funds
- Influence the management of a range of Sida-supported challenge fund programmes
- Highlighted the importance of private, sector-led approaches to fund design, management, and grant/ project implementation. Approximately 90% of the Challenge Funds supported by Sida aimed to explicitly use market incentives to test and scale innovations.
