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ORRAA Programme
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Ocean Risk and Resilience Action Alliance (ORRAA) is a multi-sector alliance that aims to drive investment into coastal natural capital through the development of innovative finance solutions. These products will reduce vulnerability and build resilience in the most exposed and vulnerable coastal regions and communities. The UK has committed £13.9 million into ORRAA, delivered in two phases. A successful Phase 1 in 2021-22 provided £1.9m in grant funding, followed by Phase 2 from 2022-2026 with £12m committed in grant funding. The UK’s investment will address 2 challenges faced by coastal communities and the ocean environment: 1) Tackling the impacts of anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss. 2) Overcoming barriers that prevent finance flowing into nature-based solutions. The grant awarded to ORRAA will support their aims to drive at least $500 million of investment into coastal and ocean natural capital, and produce at least 50 new, innovative finance products, by 2030. This would positively impact the resilience of 250 million climate vulnerable people in coastal areas worldwide.
Darwin Initiative
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Darwin Initiative is the UK’s flagship international challenge fund for biodiversity conversation and poverty reduction, established at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. The Darwin Initiative is a grant scheme working on projects that aim to slow, halt, or reverse the rates of biodiversity loss and degradation, with associated reductions in multidimensional poverty. To date, the Darwin Initiative has awarded more than £195m to over 1,280 projects in 159 countries to enhance the capability and capacity of national and local stakeholders to deliver biodiversity conservation and multidimensional poverty reduction outcomes in low and middle-income countries. More information at https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/the-darwin-initiative. This page contains information about Rounds 27 onwards. For information about Rounds 1 to 26, please see the Darwin Initiative website -https://www.darwininitiative.org.uk/
Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) is a widespread and lucrative criminal activity causing major global environmental and social harm. The IWT has been estimated to be worth up to £17 billion a year. Nearly 6,000 different species of fauna and flora are impacted, with almost every country in the world playing a role in the illicit trade. The UK government is committed to tackling illegal trade of wildlife products and is a long-standing leader in efforts to eradicate the IWT. Defra manages the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund, which is a competitive grants scheme with the objective of tackling IWT and, in doing so, contributing to sustainable development in developing countries. Projects funded under the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund address one, or more, of the following themes: • Developing sustainable livelihoods to benefit people directly affected by IWT, • Strengthening law enforcement, • Ensuring effective legal frameworks, • Reducing demand for IWT products. By 2023 over £51 million has been committed to 157 projects since the Illegal Wildlife Trade Challenge Fund was established in 2013. This page contains information about Rounds 7 onwards. For information about Rounds 1 to 6, please see the IWTCF website -https://iwt.challengefund.org.uk/
Global Programme on Sustainability
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The programme supports sustainable economic growth that is both long-lasting and resilient to climate-related stressors. It does this through the integration of natural capital into decision making by governments, the private sector and financial institutions. The inability to value natural capital can undermine long-term growth and critically, the livelihoods of the poorest people dependent on ecosystems for their livelihoods. This programme directly addresses this challenge by (i) investing in data and research on natural capital; (ii) assisting countries to integrate this analysis into government policy making; and (iii) integrating this data and analysis into financial sector decision making.
Ocean Country Partnership Programme
Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs
The Ocean Country Partnership Programme (OCPP) supports countries to manage the marine environment more sustainably, including by strengthening marine science expertise, developing science-based policy and management tools and creating educational resources for coastal communities. The programme is funded through official development assistance (ODA) as part of the UK’s £500 million Blue Planet Fund. Through the OCPP, the UK government partners with ODA-eligible countries to deliver positive impacts for coastal communities that depend on healthy marine ecosystems. Bilateral partnerships under the OCPP are primarily delivered by the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (JNCC) and the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), agencies of the UK government that possess unique expertise in marine science and management. The OCPP also funds two international initiatives that align with its aims and help to develop global public goods, the Global Ocean Accounts Partnership (GOAP) and the Friends of Ocean Action (FOA). GOAP is a global, multi-stakeholder partnership established to enable countries and other stakeholders to effectively measure and manage progress towards sustainable ocean development. FOA is a platform hosted by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the World Resources Institute, which brings together ocean leaders from a wide range of sectors to encourage action and investment into sustainable ocean projects. GOAP and FOA are both strategic partners of the OCPP, and are funded by the Blue Planet Fund (BPF). They do however remain independent organisations from OCPP, BPF, and Defra. Their work, and its intended outcomes and impacts, are strategically aligned with the OCPP and complement its programming in bilateral partnerships. GOAP and FOA were originally developed as separate business cases under the BPF, then in 2022 introduced as integrated components under OCPP to provide a clearer overall BPF offer to recipient countries. The investment to GOAP supports ODA-eligible countries to develop 'ocean accounts' to more accurately and comprehensively capture data on the natural capital assets contained within their oceans. Using this data - and through further technical, advisory, and capacity building support - GOAP aims to ensure that biodiversity is valued and integrated into policy making, decision making, and infrastructure investments in these countries, resulting in the inclusive and sustainable use and management of the ocean. An initial investment of £1million was awarded to GOAP in FY 2021/2. Following good performance in year one, a further £6million of investment was awarded, split evenly over FY's 2022/3, 23/4, and 24/5; giving a total of £7million. From December 2023, following evidence of strong value for money, this investment has since been uplifted to a total of £14.2million, involving new and expanded scope for certain activities, as well as extending the strategic partnership into FY 2025/6. FOA is a multi-stakeholder platform hosted by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the World Resources Institute, which brings together ocean leaders from a wide range of sectors to encourage action and investment into sustainable ocean projects. FOA, working closely with the High Level Panel for Sustainable Ocean Economy, aims to mobilise ocean leaders to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 14: Life Below Water. Through OCPP the investment supports pillars of FOA's work that strategically align with OCPP's own outcomes. There was an initial investment of £1million to FOA in FY 2021/2. After FOA performed well against investment and performance criteria in year one, a further investment of £2million was awarded in both FY's 2022/3 and 2023/4; rounding total investment for FOA to £5million.
Weather and Climate Science for Service Partnership (WCSSP) India - Calls- tender-SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL (STFC)
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
To undertake research on natural hazards in South Asian Monsoon system (both summer and winter); Improve capability of global coupled, regional convective scale (km) coupled and sub-km city-scale (300m) modelling frameworks to predict priority natural hazards over India. This is for 100TBAs storage on the JASMIN system to support scientists storing and sharing their outputs in order to carry out research for the weather and climate science to service partnership (WCSSP).
Weather and Climate Science for Service Partnership (WCSSP) India - Calls- tender-UNIVERSITY OF READING
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
EUPHEMISMS Consolidation. The previous EUPHEMISMS/EUPHEMISMS_FO, other WCSSP-India projects, have led to important findings about how convective storms evolve over India during the monsoon season. Knowledge and techniques gained from those studies will be employed in EUPHEMISMS_CO. The researchers have already developed a catalogue of CIs by applying the CI detection algorithm (Chug et al., 2023) to the infrared brightness product of the MERGIR dataset for a larger domain than was considered in EUPHEMISMS_FO. They will use this catalogue to first demonstrate how the location and diurnal cycle of CIs vary over different parts of India, and then uncover the relationship between soil moisture and CIs. They will also demonstrate how CIs and their relationship with soil moisture vary as the monsoon evolves. The results of this work will be consolidated into a journal paper.
Weather & Climate Service Partnership (WCSSP) India - Calls - tender
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
To undertake research on natural hazards in South Asian Monsoon system (both summer and winter); Improve capability of global coupled, regional convective scale (km) coupled and sub-km city-scale (300m) modelling frameworks to predict priority natural hazards over India. This will involve a significant observational strand to evaluate coupled models at the process level (see Appendix A for draft observations strategy); and Improve tools and techniques for risk based (Ensemble) forecasting of natural hazards at a range of prediction timescales up to a season ahead as a mechanism/pathway for delivering improved weather and seasonal climate services in country.
Weather & Climate Service Partnership (WCSSP) India - Met Office
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
To undertake research on natural hazards in South Asian Monsoon system (both summer and winter); Improve capability of global coupled, regional convective scale (km) coupled and sub-km city-scale (300m) modelling frameworks to predict priority natural hazards over India. This will involve a significant observational strand to evaluate coupled models at the process level (see Appendix A for draft observations strategy); and Improve tools and techniques for risk based (Ensemble) forecasting of natural hazards at a range of prediction timescales up to a season ahead as a mechanism/pathway for delivering improved weather and seasonal climate services in country.
Utkarsh Corelnvest Limited
British International Investment plc
Small finance bank serving low-income populations in north and east India. Partial exit on stock exchange.
Utkarsh Corelnvest Limited
British International Investment plc
Small finance bank serving low-income populations in north and east India. Partial exit on stock exchange.
Touch Holdco 3 Private Limited
British International Investment plc
Headquartered in Hyderabad, the CARE Hospitals Group is a specialist healthcare provider. The group has facilities across central, western and south-eastern India, making it one of India’s largest healthcare provider by number of beds.
IIFL Finance Limited
British International Investment plc
India Infoline Finance (IIFL Finance) is a non-banking financial company (NBFC) headquartered in Mumbai. Its portfolio comprises home loans, commercial vehicle finance, gold loans and SME business loans. It employs a workforce of over 10,500 people with a network of over 1,000 branches across India. IIFL Finance is a wholly-owned subsidiary of IIFL Holdings Ltd, a finance and investment company founded in 1995 by entrepreneurs Nirmal Jain and R. Venkataraman.CDC’s relationship with IIFL dates back to 1999 when it was one of the early investors in IIFL’s broking business.
Supermarket Grocery Supplies Private Limited (Big Basket)
British International Investment plc
bigbasket is India’s largest online grocery with a fully integrated ‘farm to fork’ model sourcing from more than 3000 farmers and employing more than 18,000 people. Its business model is tailored to serve the needs of India’s growing urban consumers as well as its rural farmer suppliers.
Indifi Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
British International Investment plc
Indifi Technologies (Indifi) is a digital lender providing loans to micro and small businesses in India.
Indifi Technologies Pvt. Ltd.
British International Investment plc
Indifi Technologies (Indifi) is a digital lender providing loans to micro and small businesses in India.
iMerit Inc.
British International Investment plc
iMerit was founded in 2012 with the vision of bringing a diverse talent pool from underserved backgrounds into the digital workforce. The company employs 3,000 workers, over half of whom are women, across India, Bhutan and the USA.
Cholamandalam Investment and Finance Company Limited
British International Investment plc
Chola is a non-bank finance company specialising in commercial and other vehicle finance loans, business loans and home loans.
Roserve Enviro Private Limited
British International Investment plc
Roserve is a wastewater management solution provider dedicated to serving manufacturing companies with wastewater treatment management, with its unique Pay As You Treat model.
Loadshare Networks Private Limited
British International Investment plc
Loadshare is an Indian logistics company that uses technology to bring together small and medium logistics companies to create a pan-Indian network reaching local suppliers and rural customers. By bringing together these smaller companies, Loadshare enables them to have better market access, which in turn boosts their growth and creates jobs.