FCDO's biggest contracts budget revealed

In April, the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office released its first commercial pipeline for the fiscal year 2024-25 — and it’s at its highest level since the department opened its doors nearly four years ago. The commercial pipeline contains anticipated procurements worth more than £2 million (about $2.5 million) each. It’s been on a rollercoaster amid aid cuts in recent times, but last year we began to see an upward tick. That’s continued with the latest release, with the pipeline now standing at £2.5 billion in total. It also includes the highest allocation for development-related activities since the chaos began in 2020. What’s more is that FCDO appears to be returning to publishing four forecasts every year. Over the past couple of years, it had reduced to publishing only one. What do we know about the opportunities available? What the overall figures tell us Unfortunately, the pipeline does not differentiate between development-related and other opportunities — so we did the hard work of digging through to find them, as well as identifying the geographic and sector information. After categorizing each opportunity, we found that nearly £1.5 billion is allocated for development-related contracts — the highest since 2020 and up from £1.2 billion last year. Of this £1.5 billion, almost £1.1 billion is for newly added opportunities, while £443 million is for re-advertised opportunities. That means there were £1 billion worth of opportunities that we did not categorize as development-related. These will be spent on HQ-related contracts, including refurbishment of embassies, insurance for FCDO’s staff in London and abroad, and staff training. Zooming in on development contracts Our analysis revealed that nearly £1.1 billion — or 71.8% of the total budget for development contracts — will go to 11 forecasted opportunities that are either global in scope or intended for multiple recipient countries. Another £31.5 million will be spent in the Congo Basin countries, £15 million for two Pan-African projects, and £8 million for a single contract for Southeast Asian countries. The rest, worth £358.7 million, is divided among 10 individual countries. Of these, South Sudan is the biggest recipient, with a £90 million budget, followed by the Democratic Republic of Congo, with £72.2 million; Zambia, with £48 million; and Pakistan, with £41.2 million. Meanwhile, a contract for technical assistance in nutrition and food systems, worth £7.5 million, has an unspecified location. Breaking the contracts down by sector, we identified institutional development as the priority, with £524.2 million — 35.1% of the total budget for development — for four anticipated contracts. Activities under this sector include monitoring and evaluation and risk management of FCDO’s projects. Activities for climate and the environment ranked next, with £373.9 million for 13 opportunities. Then humanitarian aid, with £296 million for two contracts, education, with £95.7 million for three, and women’s empowerment, with £77 million for another three contracts. The following contracts have the largest forecasted budget: • £500 million for the Global Evaluation and Monitoring Framework Agreement, or GEMFA 2, which aims to secure a pool of preapproved providers of monitoring and evaluation services to FCDO and other ODA-spending government agencies. • £264 million for the Humanitarian Emergency Response Operations and Stabilisation, HEROS 2.0. • £147 million for the second phase of the Investment in Forests and Sustainable Land Use, or IFSLU2. The program will mobilize private sector investment to protect and restore forests in several regions in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. • £90 million for the Education for All South Sudan, or EFASS, project. • £65 million for two components of the Congo Basic Forest Action Programme, or CBFAP, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The project will focus on a bottom-up approach to reversing and preventing deforestation. Try out Devex Pro Funding today with a free five-day trial, and explore funding opportunities from over 850 sources in addition to our analysis and news content.