SIDS governments and national and regional organisations can request technical assistance from the SBE Technical Assistance Platform during the calls for technical assistance. Calls for technical assistance will be published via this website.

It is expected that there will be one Open Call each year that will be open to all eligible applicants and open to provide assistance across all topic areas. There may be a smaller Additional Call for applications within each year. The Additional Calls may be limited to specific geographic regions or topic areas. The scope for each call will be specified when it is published.

Upcoming Calls

The First Open Call for Applications for technical assistance will be announced in due course. Please check back here for updates.

Details of the First Open Call for Applications

Who can apply?

Applications can be submitted by a range of government bodies, regional organisations and national bodies across the eligible SIDS.

Requests for technical assistance must cover work to support building the knowledge, tools and capacity for equitable, climate resilient, sustainable blue economies across the ODA eligible SIDS listed below.

  • Belize
  • Cabo Verde
  • Comoros
  • Cuba
  • Dominica
  • Dominican Republic
  • Fiji
  • Grenada
  • Guinea-Bissau
  • Guyana
  • Haiti
  • Jamaica
  • Kiribati
  • Maldives
  • Marshall Islands
  • Mauritius
  • Micronesia
  • Nauru
  • Niue
  • Palau
  • Papua New Guinea
  • Samoa
  • Sao Tome & Principe
  • Solomon Islands
  • St Lucia
  • St Vincent & The Grenadines
  • Suriname
  • Timor-Leste
  • Tokelau
  • Tonga
  • Tuvalu
  • Vanuatu
  • Wallis and Fortuna

Support can be requested by government bodies within eligible SIDS or by regional bodies that include eligible SIDS. Technical support can also be requested by non-governmental bodies and academic organisations within eligible SIDS, however applications from these organisations would need to be accompanied by a letter of support from the relevant Ministry.

Open Calls will be open to all eligible institutions across all eligible countries. The eligibility criteria for Additional Calls will be described for each Additional Call when it is announced.

Application process

There is a two-stage application process to request support from the Technical Assistance Platform. The Technical Assistance Platform will not be able to support all applications for assistance and application is a competitive process.

The first stage is for an eligible organisation to submit a Concept Note Application. This explains the issues which need support and how this relates to developing an equitable and sustainable blue economy. After the deadline for submission of Concept Notes they will be reviewed, and successful applications will proceed to full project proposal development.

Concept Notes must be prepared using the Concept Note template. This will be made available on the Live Calls page when each call is announced.

Applications that are progressed to project proposal development will be matched with the UK Partner that is best placed to support the proposed work. The Beneficiary Partner and UK Partner will co-develop the full project plan with support from the Development Advisors.

The UK Partner and Beneficiary Partner will be required to prepare a Project Inception Document (PID) which describes the project plan and other key information related to the proposed project.

Once the full Project Inception Document has been prepared it is submitted for final review and a decision on approval to proceed to project implementation takes place.

SBE implementatopm

The key purpose of the Concept Note is to specify the issues of concern and how support will lead to reduced vulnerably, gains for those living at risk or in poverty and help develop a climate resilient sustainable blue economy. The Concept Note does not need to specify the technical details of the assistance that is requested, this will be co-designed with the UK Partner and development advisors during the project design phase.

What assistance can be requested?

A wide diversity of assistance can be provided through the SBE Technical Assistance Platform. More details are provided on the Technical Assistance page. 

The key aspect of requests for assistance from the SBE Technical Assistance Platform is that they build the knowledge, tools and capacity for equitable, climate resilient, sustainable blue economies.