The Austrian Development Agency (ADA), a core partner of the Global Network of Regional Sustainable Energy Centres (GN-SEC), encourages private sector within the network to submit proposals to the “Business Partnership Challenge 2024 – Challenge for Sustainable Business Practices in Developing Countries”, in line with the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 and its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

Business activities in the area of SDG7, including on energy access, renewable energy and energy efficiency are within the focus of the call. According to these objectives, ADA supports business partnerships between enterprises registered in Austria, the European Economic Area  or Switzerland (EEA+) and the private sector in the Global South as these partnerships can contribute significantly to local economic development and to improving the living conditions in these countries.  

With this call for proposals, ADA offers grants up to € 1,000,000 to enterprises registered in Austria/EEA+, co-financing up to 50% of the costs of eligible development projects designed and implemented by applicants and their local partners. Following the principles of the Inclusive Market System Development Approach (IMSD), ADA encourages enterprises to submit project proposals for both socially and environmentally sound projects in partner countries. This call for proposals will be implemented by means of a two-staged process. Project funding is subject to creditworthiness and the commercial viability of the project related business plan as well as applicants’ experience in the partner country.  

A total amount of EUR 5,000,000 has been earmarked for the Business Partnership Challenge 2024. ADA provides grants between EUR 500,000 (min.) and EUR 1,000,000 (max.) per project and contributes a maximum of 50 percent of the total project costs. In every case, applicants must contribute at least 50 percent of the total project volume.  

The submission deadline is 03.06.2024. The minimum project length is three years, the maximum length five years.Further information is available here.