Last week, FIDE informed about the resumption of the development funding programme for 2021, effective March 1, 2021. The announcement was made by FIDE's Managing Director Dana Reizniece-Ozola, in a personal letter addressed to all member associations. 

As discussed in the General Assembly in December, the Development fund is budgeted at EUR 1 Million for 2021. This fund is administrated by the Planning and Development Commission (PDC), and its ultimate aim is the institutional strengthening of the Federations, the Continental Bodies, and FIDE itself. 

Like in previous years, Federations, Continents, Affiliated Associations and Commissions can apply for funding: in order to do so, they have to complete an "applications package", available at the PDC website: https://pdc.fide.com/funding-applications. This document contains not only the application to receive funds and the agreement to be established between the two parties, but also complete guidelines about key performance indicators, and the reporting procedures and obligations. 

In a first step, PDC assesses submissions based on pre-determined criteria, which include alignment with FIDE priorities, scope, clear project description and documentation of activities, and value for money. Then, FIDE Managing Director and FIDE Treasurer provide approval. 

In 2020, 58 different National Federations received support from the development fund, for a total of 184,918€. Of them, 19 Federations were from the Americas (93,000€, or 33%), 16 from Africa (80,000€, or 28%), 12 from Asia (60,918€, or 21%) and 11 from Europe (51,000€, or 18%). 

The complete information is available in the PDC report to the FIDE Congress (December 2020). Besides, all the reports submitted by the Federations and Continental Associations that benefitted from this funding in 2019 and 2020 are accessible on the PDC website.