Question to the Department for International Development:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 18 October 2017 to Question 901233, on Israel: Palestinians, if she will publish the criteria by which applications for projects seeking funding will be judged by Search for Common Ground.

DFID is funding Search for Common Ground (SFCG) to implement our new people-to-people programme due to the organisation’s long global track record of peacebuilding projects and its experience in selecting the most effective partners to achieve agreed aims. As part of formal management arrangements, the programme Steering Committee, consisting of DFID and FCO officials and SFCG staff, agreed a robust set of criteria for SFCG’s prioritisation of potential project partners as follows: a) added value of the organisation and compatibility of approach with the programme’s scope; b) the robustness of financial and administrative systems of the organisation and the ability to deliver; c) the neutrality of the political stance of the organisation; d) access to Israeli and Palestinian societies and; e) credibility with both societies.