Deadline: 16 November 2018

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) has announced a call for proposals to select a recipient or consortium of recipients to receive grant financing to implement a project on Pro-poor Agricultural Innovation System for Sustainable and Resilient Agri-food Systems.

Goal and Objective

• The project goal is to promote pro-poor Agricultural Innovations in order to contribute effectively to the sustainability and resilience of agri-food systems and improved rural livelihoods.
• The objective is to strengthen Agricultural Innovation Systems through targeted interventions to enhance functional capacities of actors and their organizations within the system within IFAD funded investments.
• Expected immediate outcomes are:
  • direct target groups gain enhanced skills and capacities and engage effectively in collective action within the innovation partnerships/niches;
  • Agricultural Innovations scaled up at national level;
  • effective and efficient of National AIS.

Possible Area of Interventions

The project will consist of three main components. Each component will consist of a set of key activities defined (that will be adapted to the specific context and needs in each country) as set below:

• Component 1: Participatory and inclusive capacity gaps and needs assessment. This component will ensure buy-in and ownership and galvanize commitment by national actors (extension and rural advisory services, research/education, NGOs, producers organizations, private sector, decision-makers, etc.) and facilitate capacity needs assessment of selected innovation partnerships/niches.
  • Key activities include:
    • comprehensive stocktaking and analysis of AIS and capacity gaps and needs assessment of 2-3 innovation partnerships;
    • galvanizing commitment and buy-in;
    • development of a common vision for capacity development.
• Component 2: Capacities development interventions, organizational strengthening and policy advice. This component will support the formulation and subsequent implementation of specific, targeted and tailored capacity development interventions to fill in the gaps and address expressed needs and priorities identified in component 1 implementation.
  • Key activities include:
    • selection and training of national innovation facilitators,
    • implementing a capacity development and coaching plan (for 2-3 innovation partnerships and 1-2 umbrella/platform organization) through interactive learning and reflection cycles,
    • marketplace to broker new partnerships,
    • policy assessment and dialogue to mainstream capacity development for AIS into national plans and strategies.
• Component 3: Project coordination and management, monitoring and evaluation and knowledge management. This component will ensure that the project is efficiently and effectively coordinated, managed and implemented to achieve the expected results (cost efficiency and cost effectiveness), as well as documenting and sharing of lessons learned.
  • Key activities include:
    • project coordination and management
    • monitoring and evaluation
    • learning and knowledge

Funding Information

• The approved grant will be awarded to the organization or a lead organisation (in case of a consortium) which has been selected as grant recipient. The grant amount is USD 2.000.000.
• The programme’s duration will be three years after the approval by the Executive Board, expected by December 2018.

Countries and Regions

The grant activities should be carried out in 4-5 countries. Potential countries, interested national institutions and international research centres operating in the countries, and in some cases IFAD investment projects the grant activities may be linked to have been identified in the ESA and LAC regions. Among these countries in particular the following three should be included:

• Zambia
• El Salvador
• Peru

Eligibility Criteria

• With this open call, IFAD is inviting interested institutions to submit a proposal. Each institution can decide to submit alone or jointly with other partner(s); in that case, the lead institution – who will enter into a legal agreement with IFAD – should be clearly identified and roles and responsibilities of the other partners and national implementing agencies be explicitly stated within the submitted proposal.
• The recipient can be an inter-governmental organization (including UNagencies and CGIAR centres), a civil society organization (including NGOs3), an academic institution or a private sector entity. be a public or a private sector entity. Government agencies of IFAD Developed Member States and non-Member States are not eligible. In case of a consortium, an organization can join more than one consortium but can be leading only in one of them.

How to Apply

All proposals must be submitted at the address given on the website.

For more information, please visit Call for Proposals.