IDRC/ACIAR Call for Concept Notes: Cultivate Africa’s Future Phase 2 (CultiAF-2) Get Specific Funding Alerts by country/countries of your interest

The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) have announced a competitive call for concept notes under the second phase of the Cultivate Africa’s Future Fund (CultiAF-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 10 developing countries.

Focus Areas

The fund will focus on issues under four key research areas aligned to regional priorities as stated in the Malabo declaration:

• Improved productivity and incomes for farmers and communities and decreased post-harvest losses;
• Improved gender equity;
• Nutrition and human health; and
• Climate change and sustainable water management.

Of special interest is supporting innovative research with the potential for breakthrough results that can be effectively scaled-up and easily adopted by smallholder farmers, food processors, post-harvest handlers, and other value chain actors to improve food and nutrition security and achieve gender equality.

Funding Information

• Project budgets under this call must be in the range of CA$1 million to CA$3 million (please see the instructions document for more detail on budgets).
• 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. Please plan activities accordingly.

Eligibility Criteria

• This call is open to applicant organizations that will work in partnership with others to carry out research in one or more of the eligible countries (mentioned below)
• 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, Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research centres, 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.

How to Apply                          

Interested applicants can apply online via given website.

Eligible Countries: Burundi, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

For more information, please visit Cultivate Africa’s Future Fund 2.