After receiving the financial support

You can download the discretionary government grant decision of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the breakdown of the costs approved for your project on the state online service by clicking on “Download the decision and its annexes”. Read the decision and approved project costs carefully and check the indicative development impact targets for your project. At the same time, familiarise yourself with the terms and conditions of the grant.

The approved project budget is binding and must be respected during the implementation of the project. Any costs outside the project budget may not be approved unless the beneficiary has in advance applied for and obtained an approval to modify the budget.

However, the dates indicated in the project plan and in the project budget are not binding, and deliverables that have been approved in the budget may be carried out at other dates than those initially planned. However, the receiving entity must request reimbursement before the due date (for more information, see the Payment and reporting instructions page).

Commit to the terms and conditions of the Business Partnership Support

Organisations that have received a positive discretionary government grant decision must commit to follow the terms and conditions of the Business Partnership Support. Organisations should submit the appropriately completed commitment form to the governmental online service as soon as possible after receiving the discretionary government grant decision, but no later than when requesting the first reimbursement.

The commitment form is filled in on the state online service portal under the tab Development cooperation issues. Select the correct type of support, i.e. Business Partnership Support, and you will find instructions on how to fill in the commitment form.

If you want to modify the project plan or budget, please fill in the modification request first

Remember that the approved project budget is binding. If, however, as the project progresses, you wish to modify the project plan or the approved budget, you must apply for approval by completing a modification application. You must apply for approval before any changes to the project or its budget are made.

You can find the form on the state online service, under the ‘Pending Issues’ tab, by clicking on the title of the application form for the Business Partnership Support project concerned. This will take you to the ‘Case details’ tab, where you will see a ‘Change/Complete’ button at the bottom of the page. If you are proposing changes to your project budget, it is often easiest to colour-code the proposed changes to the approved project budget (e.g. by highlighting in red the costs you want to cut and in another colour the costs you are proposing to add).

It is not possible to change the due date of the grant or the total amount of the grant awarded.

Reporting obligations related to the grant

Beneficiaries who have received Business Partnership Support funding are obliged to report on the progress of the project. Finnpartnership will send a short progress questionnaire by e-mail approximately 8 months, 16 months and 24 months after the grant has been awarded (three times in total).

Project progress must also be reported when requesting for reimbursements (see the Payment and reporting instructions page for more information).

In addition, a follow-up questionnaire will be sent to beneficiaries in the third and fourth year of the grant to measure the longer-term results and impact of the project in the target countries. For example, a project that has received Business Partnership Support funding in 2023 can therefore expect to receive a follow-up survey by email in 2026 and 2027. It is also mandatory to respond to the follow-up survey.