Combining AHP and Topsis to Select Eligible Social and Solidarity Economy Actors for a Call for Grants

Abstract

The procedure for selecting projects in order to offer a grant for actors of the social and solidarity economy can be a delicate task for decision-makers (Public or Private Establishments), which is based on several eligibility and refusal criteria (economic, social and environmental); the task that can sometimes take several months before returning the results. This study proposes an integrated framework based on two multi-criteria decision methods, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and technique for order performance by similarity to an ideal solution (TOPSIS), to select and rank viable projects to obtain a grant from the INDH (National Initiative for Human Development). Initially, the projects were randomly selected from a list of submitted projects to receive a grant. Later, AHP obtains weights of various criteria through pairwise comparison, and projects are ranked using TOPSIS. The proposed methodology is empirically applied to the social and solidarity economy sector and provides a detailed and effective decision-making tool for selecting suitable actors to obtain a grant. The results indicate that the conservation of natural resources and the rate of job creation are the essential criteria in the process of selecting projects.