Association Burkinabè de Fundraising

The Science for Africa Foundation is launching a call for proposals for its African Agricultural Climate Adaptation Research System.

This call for proposals seeks innovative approaches to improving climate adaptation for agriculture in Africa in ways that directly connect and strengthen the ecosystem of local actors and institutions.

Objectives

More specifically, the objective of the challenge will be :

• Support innovations that strengthen agricultural risk management processes and adaptation prioritisation, planning and investment through intra-African research collaboration on data, data science and modelling.
• Programmes that promote co-learning, training and/or scientific exchange to build capacity in specific research areas related to agricultural adaptation data, e.g. data modelling and analysis, application of data for policy makers, etc,
• Methods of coordination between researchers and institutions to support prioritisation of climate-resilient innovations for a given landscape, assessment of the impact of previous priorities and the changing climate context, and reprioritisation based on reactive learning, etc. These methods may include:
• Develop and implement innovations to connect ecosystem actors in agriculture, water, planning and development, environment (etc.)
• Ways to integrate local perspectives and help balance the trade-offs, costs and benefits of adaptation
• Strategies to improve productivity in indigenous agri-food systems based on evidence of robustness to projected climate change and variability
• Innovative systems for data collection and quantification of impacts of climate-smart interventions on WSP livelihoods, consumption, micronutrient deficiencies, obesity, etc. This may include data collection and analysis, for example, ways to distinguish between benefits under different climatic conditions and costs and benefits in poor, good and average years.
• Strengthening FAIR data management practices for agricultural and climate data programmes, including genetic information, enabling data sharing and collaboration
• Platforms to mobilise additional investment in national and regional centres of excellence for climate-smart R&D, e.g. on a small scale linking innovators and researchers with donors, to support larger-scale institutional processes.

Information on funding

• Early stage projects (proof of concept projects) - studies that have a new idea that needs to be validated and data collected to support or confirm the idea - USD 100,000.
• Transition to scale projects - projects that have proven their concept works and need to be validated in a controlled environment as they seek to develop the product or process and prepare it for scale-up - USD 200,000.
• All projects will have a grant duration of 18 to 24 months.

What are they looking for?

• They are looking for projects that meet the above objectives, and :
  • Are led by an African-based principal investigator. Teams composed of several African institutions within or between countries will be given preference over applicants from single institutions. Other global partners may be included.
  • Are based in an African institution, including academic institutions, research centres, non-profit organisations and for-profit organisations. For-profit organisations will however not be allowed to charge indirect costs. Partnerships with implementers/end-users, whoever they may be, would be recommended to avoid developing solutions without clear demand and consideration of user needs.
  • Demonstrate that at least 90% of the funding goes to an African institution(s).
• They particularly encourage applications from women-led projects and organisations.

For more information, please visitScience for Africa Foundation.