French Committee for International Solidarity (FCIS) Grants for Family Agriculture in West Africa 2018

Application Deadline: 26th February 2018

Eligible Countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.

About the Award: Faced with the rapid growth of cities and increased demand from urban consumers who change the city-countryside relationship, family farming must now strengthen its capacity to feed cities through local production.

In order to support them, the Fondation de France and the French Committee for International Solidarity (CFSI) joined forces in 2009 to launch a program to strengthen family farming in sub-Saharan Africa, refocused since 2010 on the African continent.

The overall goal of this call is to:

• promote local initiatives to increase access to food through viable and sustainable West African family farming;
• to share the gains on larger scales;
• and to contribute to documenting the sustainability of this agricultural model that is likely to challenge decision-makers to take these issues into account in public policies.

The program supports projects that address one and the other of the following two themes:

• connect family farming and markets / promote “local consumption”;
• develop sustainable agriculture practices / sustainable food systems.

The 2018 call for projects exclusively targets innovations specific to the connection with mass markets. In 2018, only those projects demonstrating a real capacity to implement innovations responding to the following priority questions will be selected:

How to go beyond the niche markets? – whether through institutional purchases or through actions aimed at reaching a significant number of consumers in the middle and poor or very poor categories.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: This call is for non-profit corporations:

1. Farmers’ Organizations (POs) in West Africa;
2. support NGOs active in West Africa or in Europe as long as they work with local partners;
3. research and / or training organizations.

Selection Criteria: After verifying that the project responds well to the 2018 priority issue, the selection committee will make a selection according to the following criteria:

• admissibility of the dossier from an administrative point of view (complete dossier, correctly filled in and with the accompanying documents as requested, files correctly named and in the requested format, amount of the grant and duration of the project, no error in the budgets, etc.);
• eligibility of applicants, partners and projects;
• relevance of the innovation(s) put in place by the project and the extent to which they enable sustainable family farming production to have access to urban and rural markets and to enhance consumption of healthy local products;
• quality of the project (its impact on family farming and on access to food in towns and cities; preservation of natural resources and of biodiversity; adaptation to climate change; rural employment; governance; skill-based partnerships, at local and international level; etc.);
• taking into account former experiences or experiences led by other actors on similar themes and/or on the same territory;
• feasibility: relevance of project’s budget and action plan, coherence of the general objective, specific objectives, planned activities, expected results and the indicators of these same results; coherence between estimated budget and financial planning;
• criteria for inclusion of scaling-up (measures to ensure the continued benefits over the long run, capitalization, dissemination and valorization, replication of the innovations, advocacy, etc.).

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: In order to encourage applicants to develop diversified partnerships, especially local ones, the Pafao program will not finance the whole project (maximum at 80%). The financing plans will mention the other solicited/acquired financial partners, as well as the self-financing part which is forecast.

Two kinds of initiatives will be supported:

• short-term projects (one-year duration), with a granted amount of 10,000€ to 15,000€;
• multi-year projects (3 years maximum), with a maximum amount of 50,000€ for the whole period (3 years) and paid in annual installments in light of the progress of the project.

The supported projects can already be under way, or be specific parts of wider projects, whether under way or new. The financed actions must unfold after January 1st, 2018 and begin before December 31st, 2018

How to Apply: 

• The file composed of the application form (word file), the budget (excel file) and the annexes requested – completed in French or in English – is to be sent by email only to the following address: secr.aea@cfsi.asso.fr. See all Links in Program Webpage Link below.
• The shipment will be made in several mails, each of which will have a maximum weight of 8 MB.
• The files will be processed by the program secretariat provided by the CFSI.
• Any question relating to this call for projects, and remained unanswered after a careful reading of the guidelines, can be asked by mail only to: secr.aea@cfsi.asso.fr

Visit the Program Webpage for Details

Award Providers: French Development Agency.

Important Notes: The call for projects is reserved for proposals for actions in formalized partnership between a West African organization and a European organization. The leading organization can be West African or European.