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UK contribution to the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) Special Fund
HM Treasury
At the ninth UK-China Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) in Beijing on 16 December 2017, the Chancellor of the Exchequer signed a Contribution Agreement with the AIIB, formalising the UK’s commitment, made at the previous EFD in 2016, to provide US$50m to the AIIB’s Special Fund for Project Preparation. This fund provides grant support to developing Asian countries to prepare infrastructure projects for the Bank to finance. The UK's contribution is through the Prosperity Fund.
Pulmonary rehabilitation delivered in low resource settings for people with chronic respiratory disease: a 3-arm assessor-blind implementation trial
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
MRC AGHRB Award to conduct a 3-arm individually randomised, assessor-blinded hybrid-1 implementation trial to evaluate clinical effectiveness of pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) for people with chronic respiratory disease (CRD), in Bangladesh, India and Malaysia.
Tobacco Free Cities: implementation research with city governments in Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam
DEPARTMENT FOR SCIENCE, INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY
This proposal will address this implementation research challenge. the Overall Aim is to work with city actors (city governments and civil society) and the public in two cities (1 mega, 1 secondary) each in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Vietnam to critically examine the implementation of strategies for enforcing smoke-free laws with a view to generate insights for effective implementation and scale-up of these strategies.
Supporting Oral Language Development
DEPARTMENT FOR BUSINESS, ENERGY & INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY
Children with a small vocabulary are at a disadvantage for all aspects of learning. Unless there is targeted support, children who start slow will continue to fall behind their language-rich peers. A powerful way to ensure all children are ready for learning, particularly in school, is to offer high quality oral language education early in a child's life. The power of early language intervention is supported by a large body of evidence showing a combined foundation of strong spoken language and listening comprehension cascading to reading and writing skills. However, little is known about the efficacy of oral language interventions in low- and middle-income countries where communities are often multilingual. We aim to address this gap in the literature through a mixed-methods study with children ages of 3-to-6 living in India and the Philippines. The study will examine oral language development under the particular complexities of multilingual urban poor settings. Research in these settings is of importance as there is reason to believe resources that spontaneously support children's language development may be under strain for the urban poor (e.g. reduced social networks, a new school language), making them a particularly vulnerable group for school failure. A co-developed project The proposed project was co-developed by multiple agencies. Government partners shared that a pressing systemic concern was the low literacy rates in primary schools. Community partners stressed the need for evidence on quality programs that will work in local schools and university partners echoed the need for a comprehensive program of research. We therefore propose to understand children's language development in-context and will test an intervention that could potentially better prepare children for primary school. The research sites will be Udupi district in India and Quezon City in the Philippines. Defining characteristics of these sites include the multiple languages around the child and a policy commitment to either mother-tongue or multilingual education. Hence, these contexts offer an opportunity to research a topic that is understudied in not just DAC countries but also internationally: children's oral language development and oral language intervention in a multilingual setting. Objectives and Outputs The primary objective of this research is to provide descriptive and causal evidence on quality (in early childhood development and pre-primary education) and readiness (for primary education) through three studies that aim to a) map opportunities and barriers to oral language development, b) validate assessments to track children's developing oral language and c) examine a targeted intervention delivered by teachers one year before entry into primary school. We will map opportunities and barriers by following thirty children over one day to record their language experiences, examining language knowledge of their conversation partners, and conducting an ethnographic inquiry of classes they attend. We will finetune fifteen assessments by analyzing 3000 data points on each test and, in a study with 800 children, evaluate a language intervention designed with teachers that draws upon folk tales and local narratives. This inter-disciplinary project will provide an approach to reach the Sustainable Development Goal of effective learning outcomes for all children by focusing on the language bedrock of early childhood learning. Outputs include evidence briefs for policy makers and open access toolkits for educators. Multiple bodies of data for the research community will expand the evidence-base in these contexts. These include a word bank, an archive of child language, a rich description of talk in the classroom, performance data and outcomes data. Taken together, the proposed research could potentially act as a catalyst for informed early childhood education in India, the Philippines, and other DAC countries.
India Infrastructure Fund
British International Investment plc
This is an infrastructure fund investing in India.
Actis South Asia Fund 2 LP
British International Investment plc
This is a private equity fund investing in South Asia
Actis South Asia Fund 2 LP
British International Investment plc
This is a private equity fund investing in South Asia
NDB Venture Investment (Pvt) Ltd
British International Investment plc
Fund
International Asset Reconstruction Fund 1 Trust
British International Investment plc
This is a distressed asset fund investing in India.
Modern Slavery - Supporting Global Action to End Modern Slavery
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
To develop new approaches to tackle modern slavery and human trafficking across a range of sectors in high prevalence countries. This programme focuses on thematic priorities of eradicating forced labour in supply chains, tackling the worst forms of child labour, and ending the exploitation of women and girls, and it will support and empower survivors of modern slavery across all these priorities. The programme supports bilateral programmes in high prevalence countries and contributes to multilateral organisations on global policy and advocacy work. The programme will also develop research and evidence on different forms of modern slavery to inform future interventions. This programme contributes toward SDG 8.7 to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
Climate Action for a Resilient Asia
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
A Technical Assistance facility will build capacity of national and subnational governments and vulnerable communities to integrate climate resilience into government-wide policy and planning and also work with the private sector, banks and financial regulators to support the integration of climate-related risks into investment decisions. A portion of the programme budget will be earmarked for coordinated policy work and regional cooperation in specific sectors or themes which require a regional approach where we have existing successful regional partnerships which can be scaled up, and or there is demand from country offices for a multi-country approach. Enable management of the programme including monitoring and evaluation, research, knowledge dissemination, communication, advisory support to country offices if required.
I2I - Ideas to Impact - Testing new technologies and innovative approaches to address development challenges.
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
I2I stimulates technological innovations addressing intractable development challenges, initially in the focal areas of energy, water and climate, and then increasingly in emerging “frontier” technologies with broader applicability. It tests different funding mechanisms and approaches - including prizes, peer-to-peer financing, Frontier Technology Livestreaming, and innovative cross-government partnerships - for ensuring technology ideas lead to a real-world development impact.
The Evidence Fund - 300708
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
The Evidence Fund procures and manages research and evaluations that primarily benefit ODA eligible countries. Most research and evaluations paid for by the Evidence Fund are country-specific, and all respond to requests for evidence to inform programme or policy decisions. Primarily serving research requests from HMG’s Embassies and High Commissions in ODA eligible countries, and from HMG policy and strategy teams, the Evidence Fund strengthens the evidence behind the UK’s priority international development investments and development diplomacy. The Evidence Fund also invests modest amounts of non-ODA, to strengthen the evidence behind wider UK foreign policy.
PIDG2 - Second phase of FCDO's Support to the Private Infrastructure Development Group .
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
The aim of PIDG is to mobilise private investment in infrastructure, in order to increase service provision for the poor, boost economic growth, trade and jobs to alleviate poverty in the world’s poorest countries.
Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
The Commercial Agriculture for Smallholders and Agribusiness (CASA) programme supports small and medium-sized (SME) agribusinesses with smallholder supply chains to grow and attract investment for high development impact. CASA is 100% International Climate Finance (ICF) funded, building inclusive, climate-resilient agri-food systems that increase smallholder farmer incomes and strengthen food production, food security and nutrition outcomes.
Disaster Risk Insurance
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
To improve the resilience of the private sector in poor countries to natural disasters by improving access to insurance products. By supporting the development of a market for private sector disaster risk insurance in developing countries, the project will sustainably help strengthen resilience, mitigate the effects of climate change and supporting economic development through private sector growth.
BBC World Service
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office
Increasing the provision of, and access to, impartial news and information that responds to audience needs in English and local languages in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America & Central America
Governance foundations to sustain forests and people: Forest Governance, Markets and Climate Phase II
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
The programme will work at international and national levels to address governance failures by both government and market to curb deforestation, restore degraded lands and eco-services whilst delivering benefits and sustaining livelihoods for people in developing countries. It will build from the experience of an earlier global programme, expanding it to address new threats to forests such as mining and encouraging national climate strategies to focus on forests.
Effective Governance for Economic Development in Central Asia
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
EGED will help improve the effectiveness, accountability and transparency of economic policies in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. We will support governments in the three countries to generate better data and evidence, use this data for policy design and implementation of up to 15 economic reforms, improved coordination within government, and better engagement with citizens. We will also build the capacity of civil society in the region to hold the governments of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan to account on select economic policies. Success will be measured through a) increased public sector revenue generated as a result of better policy planning and monitoring; b) better economic policy outcomes helping improve the livelihoods of Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Tajik citizens and c) improved quality of engagement between government and civil society.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Systems for Health
UK - Foreign, Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO)
WASH Systems for Health will support governments in up to five developing countries in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to strengthen the systems needed to establish reliable, resilient and inclusive WASH services over five years. The programme will contribute to better health, nutrition and education, especially for poorer households and communities, and for women and girls in particular - and will be core to the UK’s approach to ending the preventable deaths of mothers, young children and infants (EPD). The programme’s focus on systems marks a fundamental shift in FCDO’s approach to WASH. Our new approach will enhance the sustainability of WASH services; it will ensure that women are empowered to take informed decisions about the services they receive; and it will attract new public and private finance to accelerate progress towards SDG 6 WASH targets – including universal access to safely managed WASH services.