Announcment of new International Development Learning Fund

Announcement of new SFPA International Development Learning Fund

The new three year DFID/TUC Strategic Framework Partnership Arrangement (SFPA) began last month. One objective within the partnership is to build TUC affiliated trade union capacity to work on international development: to raise development awareness amongst their membership and/or to work in partnership with developing country trade unions. To achieve this, the TUC is currently setting up an International Development Learning Fund.

There are two elements to the Fund:

1. The main Fund - the IDLF Access - is to assist TUC affiliates to build their capacity to successfully apply to DFID's highly competitive

• Development Awareness Fund (DAF) and
• Civil Society Challenge Fund (CSCF)

It also involves building affiliate engagement with DFID in a more systematic way. Accessing this Fund requires fairly intensive work in partnership with the TUC and DFID and it is envisaged that a limited number of affiliates will wish to engage in this process in each year of the Arrangement. The criteria affiliates must meet to access this fund will reflect this and there will be separate guidelines for the DAF focused work and for CSCF focused work. Affiliates can apply to work on either or both areas.

2. The second element of the Fund is the IDLF Mini Grants. In order to access Mini Grants, applicants must show how their proposal forms part of a basic development awareness strategy within the union or TUC region. There will be two components to the Mini Grants - either organising an activity such as a seminar, a union education programme and/or hosting trade unionists from developing countries. The activities funded could be used as a stepping-stone towards an application to the main Fund (as above).

TUC affiliates are invited to consider their possible interaction with the IDLF and identify which aspects they might like to get involved with. The first step in engaging with this new process is to explore what the Strategic Framework Partnership Arrangement (SFPA) itself is all about. You can do this by logging onto www.tuc.org.uk/devfr and looking at the pages called TUC/DFID Partnerships. The full IDLF guidelines will be posted to the TUC website by the time of the TUC's Congress which starts on 11 September, however, before that, those affiliates interested in the IDLF Access, can log onto www.tuc.org.uk/devlf to explore more fully what it is about.

Advice on the IDLF or any other aspect of the TUC SFPA can be gained from Gemma Freedman, SFPA Project Officer Gfreedman@tuc.org.uk or 020 7467 1233.