Darwin Initiative: Finance

(asked on 8th January 2024) - View Source

Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 6 December 2023 to Question 5477 on Darwin Initiative: Finance, if he will appoint independent experts to the Darwin Expert Committee to decide grant applications.


Answered by
Rebecca Pow Portrait
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
This question was answered on 12th February 2024

Decisions on which Darwin Initiative grants to award are taken by Defra.

The Darwin Expert Committee technically assesses proposals and provides its' recommendations to Defra for consideration. Defra appoints new members to the Committee following an open and competitive recruitment process, based on their capabilities and technical expertise and not to represent the organisation for which they work.

To ensure the independence of the advice provided by the Committee, Defra has in place a robust conflicts of interest policy, where members are required to declare their interests and recuse themselves from the assessment of any application in which they have an interest. Under its last three funding rounds, the Darwin Initiative received applications from 915 organisations.

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