IDRC & ACIAR have issued a call on Ensuring a Food Secure Africa: Cultivate Africa’s Future Fund 2. This call will support cutting edge applied field and/or laboratory research projects with the potential to generate high impact and innovative results with particular impact on the food insecure and poor in eligible eastern and southern African countries. All projects require a sound environmental impact assessment, the consideration of social and gender issues, and an applicability to smallholder farmers. The projects should address real practical development challenges and research needs of the following 10 African developing countries: Burundi; Ethiopia; Kenya; Malawi; Mozambique; Rwanda; Tanzania; Uganda; Zambia; and Zimbabwe.
The fund will focus on issues under four key research areas aligned to regional priorities as stated in the Malabo declaration:
i. Improved productivity and incomes for farmers and communities and decreased post-harvest losses;
ii. Improved gender equity;
iii. Nutrition and human health; and
iv. Climate change and sustainable water management.
Project budgets under this call must be in the range of CA$1 million to CA$3 million. Project duration must not exceed 42 months, including all research activities and final reporting. It is anticipated that projects selected in this call will begin in January 2019.
This call is open to applicant organizations that will work in partnership with others to carry out research in one (or more) of the 10 eligible countries mentioned above. Applicant organizations must be developing country organizations (national agricultural research systems, universities, government departments, NGOs, regional organizations, and Southern-led international organizations) with legal corporate registration in an eligible country. They may work in partnership with Canadian or Australian organizations, but this is not a requirement. United Nations organizations, CGIAR centers, and Canadian and Australian organizations shall not apply to this fund as applicant organizations. They may, however, be included in applications by other research teams as third-party organizations.
The deadline for submission of concept notes is on March 1, 2018 by 10:00 AM (EST). More information is available at the following link.