Shortlist

The view across Kabul from our office

So, finally we have a provisional shortlist, and now we are working with each of the applicants left in the competition to wrap up discussions on their concept notes ahead of a public announcement of who is on the final list.

We completed our applicant due diligence and earlier this week DFID gave their no objections to the shortlist we put forward (an arrangement that is in place for the first round only while we see how things go). It is good to report that (for now at least) everything seems to be going according to schedule.

We wrote to all of the applicants on 1 February to tell them whether they had been shortlisted or not. Not surprisingly since then we have had quite a few emails and phone calls from applicants that didn't make it through this time. These communications range from requests for feedback and suggestions as to how they can strengthen their concept for the next round, to assertions that we have made a mistake and that we should meet urgently to discuss "ways" in which the concept could be reconsidered for inclusion in this round. Our policy is to be very supportive to those who ask for help, and to politely decline any requests to reconsider the evaluation. The good news is that among those that didn't make it, there is a significant number of applicants with good concepts that can be further developed for resubmission in future rounds.

But for this round, there are 19 applicants on the provisional shortlist (two have fallen by the wayside since the Investment Panel meeting) and we have now sent detailed review points to each one. This is our chance to highlight areas where we need additional information or there are details here and there that need to be corrected. The applicants have until 14 February to respond to these review points and to sign a shortlisting memorandum of understanding.

The MoU sets out all of the "terms and conditions" of shortlisting, making it clear what the obligations exist (and do not exist) for the applicant and for ABIF. The purpose of the MoU is to avoid any future misunderstandings about the basis of the shortlisting and to keep relationships on a more formal, business like basis... we want to have a solid professional relationship with the applicants, but we do not want to get too close to them.

Assuming that everything goes to plan, we then intend to announce the final shortlist on 16 February. This will be when we move on to the full proposals; mobilising our expert pool and getting down into the details of each application. We will have two months or so to prepare full proposals. I have to say that as we move on from one stage to the next in this application process, the work gets more and more interesting and I am so looking forward to watching the business plans come together in the second stage.

In the meantime, our meetings with the applicants on the provisional shortlist go on (I hope that we will get over to Herat this week to do some site visits there). It is really interesting to see how the atmosphere in such meetings has changed. The prospect of the grant is much more real and the applicants now seem to be much more focused on what it is that we are asking for.

And as we go into this final stage of the first round, it is very pleasing that first, we have some strong applicants and very good concept notes to work with, and secondly, from a budget point of view we probably have more than we ideally need in the first round. This means that even though we are in the shortlisting stage, there is still a healthy element of competition in the air. I have no doubt that this will play to our advantage as we proceed towards the full proposals...