FONTAGRO announces the 2021 Call for the presentation of
projects "Innovation for sustainable and resilient agri-food and
territorial development in Latin America and the Caribbean".
The objective of the call is to identify project proposals that
provide concrete evidence of “how to promote sustainable and resilient
agri-food and territorial development through the addition of value in the LAC
region.”
This call addresses strategy II of the 2020-2025
MTP, which seeks to increase the number of technologies and innovations with
high potential for adoption and impact on the sustainability of farming
systems, agro ecosystems and the territory. To fulfill the objective of the
call, initiatives must be based on prior and validated scientific knowledge,
and must either promote new innovations or validate promising or successful
existing ones.
FONTAGRO was created in 1998 with the objective of establishing a
sustainable financing mechanism for the development of agricultural technology
in LAC, and a forum for the discussion of priority topics in technological
innovation. Its purpose is to promote an increase in the competitiveness of the
agri-food sector, ensuring sustainable natural resource management and poverty
reduction in the region. It currently has 15 country members and two sponsors,
the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the Inter-American Institute for
Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the former being its legal representative.
Funding Information
- Duration: 36 months.
- The proposed activities must be
carried out in at least two FONTAGRO member countries.
- This call will be carried out
with FONTAGRO’s own resources. The total amount of the call is US$800,000.
FONTAGRO will co-finance up to four proposals for a maximum amount of
US$200,000 each.
Eligibility Criteria
- Regional Innovation Platform
(RIP). Existing or new Regional Innovation Platforms (RIPs) will be
co-financed; such RIPs should be made up of public agents or
public-private alliances that come together to design and implement a
regional technical cooperation project in compliance with the terms of
reference of this call.
- RIP participants. RIPs should
promote practices and / or institutional arrangements that promote the
public and / or public-private entrepreneurial ecosystem and that create
links between producers and science and academia actors. The latter must
be identified and included in the initial presentation of the project’s
concept note. RIPs should connect the different actors with the final
users or beneficiaries. For this, they must be consisting in:
- at least one public or private
scientific research center;
- direct beneficiaries who must
be included in the testing or validation process;
- an entrepreneur or
entrepreneurial team (optional); and / or
- other partner organizations
(optional).
- Administrative role of
participants. As for the administrative implementation of the project,
only one of the institutions should act as executing agency and,
therefore, legally empowered to act as such and manage funds in United
States dollars on behalf of the rest of the platform participants, who
will act as coexecuting agencies (if they receive funds from FONTAGRO) and
optionally as associated organizations (if they participate with their own
funds).
- Technical role of participants.
RIP participants must be multi- and interdisciplinary and demonstrate a
multidimensional approach (productive agronomic, social, economic,
technological, environmental, and / or value-added, among others)
consistent with the technology or innovation that is proposed for
validation. As for the complementarity of technical functions,
participants may be public, private, national, regional and / or
international institutions.
- General conditions regarding
regionality. This call prioritizes the creation of platforms made up of
partners from different regions and with different capacities and
strengths in technical disciplines so that they will complement one
another. The following are the defined regions: (1) Southern Cone, (2)
Andean Region, (3) Central America, (4) Caribbean Region, and (5)
extra-LAC region
- Particular conditions regarding
regionality. FONTAGRO will co-finance proposals executed by public
institutions or public-private alliances of at least two FONTAGRO member
countries. This means that the activities to be carried out by the
proposal must be implemented in at least those two member countries. Once
this requirement has been fulfilled, other institutions from FONTAGRO
non-member countries, though mandatorily from IDB member countries, and
regional and international organizations will be allowed to participate as
partner organizations with a facilitating or complementary role, and with
their own resources
- Conditions regarding global
regionality. Institutions from IDB non-member countries may participate by
contributing their own funds to the RIPs; they may do so by signing an
agreement either with the IDB — the legal representative of FONTAGRO — or
directly with the platform institutions, in agreement with IDB / FONTAGRO.
Post Date - 16-Dec-2020