The Alliance to Accelerate Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) is inviting proposals to take on a new Grand Challenge: Promote and facilitate innovative solutions to achieve Food Security and Nutrition in Africa.

AESA was created through a partnership between the African Academy of Sciences (AAS), the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).

This call is focussed on the SDG2 targets with the overall aim of empowering and nurturing African innovators and researchers to work in collaborative local and global partnerships with the ambitious but achievable goals of accelerating knowledge generation, developing and deploying interventions and innovations that will advance progress towards ending hunger, achieving food security and tackling malnutrition in all its forms.

This call hopes to promote quality research and innovation to address these critical gaps and is the culmination of engaging key stakeholders through a survey between July and August 2020 on the African continent to identify priority areas to ensure sustainable food systems and tackle malnutrition.

These grand challenge innovation grants will be issued and administered under Grand Challenges Africa (GC Africa), a programme implemented in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Objective

• The call aims to build capacity for Africa to respond to, mitigate and, where possible, reverse effects of various challenges to achieving food security and nutrition, such as climate change and variability, malnutrition, conflicts, economic crises and price volatility in markets, declining incomes, poor land and water management, including in the context of more recent complex and unprecedented issues of COVID-19 pandemics and locust outbreaks in parts of East Africa.
• This joint initiative by GC Africa's partners (AAS and Sida) also aims to nurture and strengthen the innovation ecosystem in Africa by supporting the development of sustainable research networks that will contribute to solving Africa's challenges in Global Development and Health.
• They want to develop a community of African leaders in research and innovation; strengthen the development of innovative solutions facilitating the resolution of global health and development challenges facing Africa; reinforce research and training capacity in African institutions through the transfer of skills between international networks and partner organisations hosting the grand challenges; and facilitate sustainable multidisciplinary partnerships between research groups in Africa.

Key areas

Projects that will apply and enable the adoption of new technologies, innovations and policies in at least one of the following key areas for:

• Ensuring climate-resilient food systems;
• Promoting technologies, innovations and agribusiness to achieve food security and nutrition goals;
• Address cross-cutting issues that promote food security and nutrition;
• Achieving the African Union's nutrition and health targets;
• Combating the sustainable commercialisation and production of indigenous food.

Financing Information

• The Food Security and Nutrition (FSN) awards will fund projects of up to US$ 100,000 for a maximum period of 2 years.
• These awards are seed grants (phase I) designed to provide an opportunity to test particularly bold and conceptual ideas, including the application of approaches from outside the fields indicated for this call.
• New approaches could be piloted as additions to ongoing projects. Winners of GC Africa-FSN grants will have the opportunity to apply for follow-on, transition to scale funding in the future, but please note that support for phase II funding is NOT part of this call.

What are they looking for?

Projects that will apply and enable the adoption of new technologies, innovations and policies in at least one of the following key areas for:

• Ensuring climate-resilient food systems;
• Promoting technologies, innovations and agribusiness to achieve food security and nutrition goals;
• Address cross-cutting issues that promote food security and nutrition;
• Achieving the African Union's nutrition and health targets;
• Combating the sustainable commercialisation and production of indigenous food;
• Projects should aim to develop innovations or interventions that address at least one aspect of food security and nutrition (access, availability, utilisation and sustainability) or provide new evidence-based ways to strengthen and promote the effectiveness of these aspects for existing solutions. Such solutions can include, but are not limited to, models, strategies, tools, services, technologies and processes;
• They seek ideal solutions that apply a deeper understanding of the end user and consider the contextual constraints of implementation;
• Projects must be relevant to strengthening food security and nutrition systems and can target key actors such as individuals, families, communities, farmers, service providers and components of food infrastructure, networks and systems.

Examples of what they will consider funding for innovations that:

• Highlight and increase interventions that increase the resilience of agri-food systems to climate shocks (drought, pests, floods or pandemics such as COVID-19 etc).
• Provide affordable and acceptable options to increase climate-smart agricultural practices, e.g. reduce emissions from agriculture, avoid biodiversity loss, prevent soil degradation and soil nutrient depletion, etc.
• Investigating agricultural practices that can reverse the negative impacts of intensive agriculture and, at the same time, combat acute and chronic food insecurity.
• Develop measures for access to dense and affordable food by low-income communities to address multiple burdens of malnutrition (undernutrition, micronutrient deficiencies, overweight and obesity) while mitigating the negative impacts of the food transition.
• Targets for activities that mitigate specific community restrictions to improve the nutritional status of specific groups - babies, children, adolescents, pregnant and breastfeeding women, the elderly, sick or convalescent individuals, etc.
• Research into the potential of indigenous food systems to prevent the wave of non-communicable diseases, micronutrient deficiencies, wasting, malnutrition, obesity and overweight in Africa.
• Prioritise policies that promote access and affordability of nutritious food for vulnerable groups.
• Promote the use of agriculture, food and nutrition as a factor for socio-economic development; equity and inclusion; stability, and to guarantee peace and security.
• Develop structures that promote advances in agri-food systems, home-grown solutions to food insecurity, training facilities for new generations of actors in agri-food systems, e.g. young farmers, traders, innovators, researchers, etc.
• Identify strategies to improve productivity in indigenous agri-food systems, including indigenous crops and livestock.
• Identify the support needed to develop the seed production sector for nutrient-dense foods such as fruit and vegetables, as well as underutilised and indigenous foods, including livestock.
• Researching market value chains for indigenous foods, their safety and efficacy testing, including marketing and consumer perceptions.
• Build diversified and sustainable food systems that promote nutrient-dense eating patterns (e.g. fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, insects, etc.) and downgrade patterns of highly processed, energy-dense and low-nutrient foods.
• Promoting technologies/innovations that minimise pre-harvest and post-harvest losses and/or general food waste through consumption patterns, such as food storage, recycling technologies, dietary patterns, etc.
• Promoting innovations that reduce food contamination, e.g. aflatoxins and other sources of food-borne illness.
• Promote sustainable livestock farming practices that can reduce infections and dependence on antibiotics.

Eligibility criteria

• The call is open to innovators working in national organisations, international organisations, government agencies, research and academic institutions.
• Please note that this call is open to both non-profit and profit organisations.

Criteria for Success

The criteria for success will include solutions that:

• It could contribute to a portfolio of funded projects that address a country's main regional priorities or challenges.
• Clearly incorporate reasonable measures of success for the lifetime of the concession (24 months).
• Incorporate multiple areas of innovation or expand intervention toolkits, especially sets of interventions aimed at combinations of results that cover the spectrum of objectives outlined for this call.
• Have a project plan whereby, after two years, the end of phase I, the beneficiaries will be in a position to explore how the results of their project could inform the design of a more extensive collaborative package of work that can be submitted for phase II funding.
• Address well-identified barriers and restrictions that will be resolved through the implementation of locally relevant programmes.
• Explain how the proposed innovations and interventions will eventually be tested in communities so that they have the greatest chance of being relevant for wider implementation in the country's systems.
• Provide data or evidence for effective food security and nutrition solutions.
• Addressing inequities in food security and nutrition.
• It can potentially build on existing partnerships, which will be essential for achieving results at scale.

Evaluation and Selection Criteria

• Proposals will be submitted in accordance with the Rules and Guidelines. The evaluation consists of a formal three-stage assessment by GC Africa involving an initial eligibility check, external international expert review and a final decision by the committee.
• Some of the variables that will be assessed during the initial evaluation include; completeness of the application documents, relevance and response to the call requirements, application from an African institution, with the beneficiary or resident of the host country. Only proposals that meet the eligibility criteria will be subject to specialised review for content and quality. based on:
  • Innovation;
  • Scientific and technical excellence;
  • Judicious use of project resources.

For more information, visit https://www.aasciences.africa/calls/grand-challenges-africa-innovation-phase-1-seed-grants-round-12-request-proposals-food