The grant classification error that kills African infrastructure bids
Project preparation and project implementation are different funding instruments. Confusing them costs institutions and their technical partners months of work, and funder credibility that doesn't come back.
Preparation and implementation are not the same ask
Many multilateral funds bankroll project preparation (feasibility studies, environmental and social impact assessments, transaction advisory) for infrastructure that has already been identified. Fewer funds pay for the infrastructure itself. Confusing the two is not a paperwork error. It reads to a funder as a structural mismatch, and it can prejudice the same applicant's future submissions to the same instrument.
The fix is not better writing. It is classifying the call correctly before a single page is drafted: is this fund financing the study, or the thing the study recommends? Eligibility rules for who can lead an application (a public entity, an accredited implementing entity, a private technical partner) follow directly from that answer, and get harder to unwind the later they surface.
Think Delus classifies the instrument before we classify the proposal. It is a smaller step than it sounds, and it is the one most bid teams skip.
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