MENA Scholarship Programme (MSP)

Application Deadline: October 13th 2020

The MENA Scholarship Programme (MSP) offers scholarships to professionals for short courses in the Netherlands.

The overall aim of the MSP is contributing to capacity building within organisations by enabling employees to take part in short courses in the Netherlands. It also aims at strengthening the relations between the participating countries and The Netherlands by building a sustainable alumni network.

While the scholarship is awarded to individuals, all candidates must be nominated by their employer to be able to participate. The need for training has to be demonstrated in the context of the organisation the applicant is employed by.

Target group

The scholarships are awarded in a competitive selection to highly motivated professionals ‘change makers’ who are in a position to introduce the newly-acquired skills and knowledge into their employing organisation. 50% of all scholarships are allocated to female applicants.

The MSP is open to professionals who are nationals of – and living and working in – one of the countries listed below: 

• Algeria
• Egypt
• Iran
• Iraq
• Jordan   
• Lebanon
• Libya
• Morocco
• Syria *
• Tunisia

* MSP is not currently open to professionals applying from Syria. Applicants with the Syrian nationality may apply if they are residing and working in one of the other MSP countries listed.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible for an MSP scholarship:

• one must be a professional and national of, and living and working in one of the countries on the MSP country list valid at the time of application;
• one must have a current employer’s statement that complies with the format Nuffic has provided. All information must be provided and all commitments that are included in the format must be endorsed in the statement;
• one must not be employed by an organisation that has its own means of staffdevelopment. Organisations that are considered to have their own means of staff development are for example: multinational corporations (e.g. Shell, Unilever, Microsoft), large national and/or a large commercial organisation, bilateral donor organisations (e.g. USAID, DFID, Danida, Sida, Dutch ministry of Foreign affairs, FinAid, AusAid, ADC, SwissAid), multilateral donor organisations, (e.g. a UN organisation, the World Bank, the IMF, Asian Development Bank, African Development Bank, IADB), international NGO’s (e.g. Oxfam, Plan, Care);
• one must have an official and valid passport (valid at least 3 months after the candidate submission date);
• one must have a government statement that meets the requirements of the country in which the employer is established (if applicable);
• the age of the MSP candidate must not exceed 45 years of age at the time of the grant submission;
• the candidate is only allowed to submit one scholarship application. If the candidate submits more than one application only the last application will be taken into consideration. All other applications will be marked as not eligible without notifying;
• the scholarship application is in line with the priority areas mentioned in the Country Focus Document.

Current application round

Round 2 is now open for applications. Nuffic’s deadline for applications is 13 October 2020 16.00 CEST. Each education institution has a different deadline for applications. Please contact the institution for more information or take a look at the deadlines mentioned in the course list.

How to apply

Application for the MSP takes place via Dutch institutions. Each deadline, these institutions provide a list of courses available for that deadline. The short courses on offer fall within several fields of study, and have a duration of 2 to 12 weeks.

Before you decide to apply, make sure to do these 3 things:

1. Review the eligibility criteria carefully.
2. Check whether your employer is willing to nominate you for the scholarship. 
3. Check if your application fits within the country focus areas of your country, which are taken into consideration when scholarship applications are nominated and assessed.

For More Information:

Visit the Official Webpage of the Nuffic MENA Scholarship Programme 2020/2021