Deadline: 14 November 2018
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is currently accepting proposals for the 22nd Round of the Grand Challenges Exploration on the topic of “New Approaches for Strategic Prioritization of Agricultural Development Policies”.
The Foundation seeks new approaches for strategic prioritization of agricultural development policies. The Foundation specifically encourage approaches that not only help countries prioritize agricultural development policies, but also inform long-term strategic planning. Proposals must closely align with the goals of the Gates Foundation’s Agricultural Development team. Although proposed solutions may be generated from ideas and contexts outside of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), all solutions must be relevant, transferrable, and applicable, in SSA focus countries: Nigeria, Tanzania, and Ethiopia.
Approaches
These approaches could include one or more of the following:
- Building a more robust approach to the challenge of policy prioritization using – but not limited to – modeling, e.g., creating a new “package” or “blend” of complimentary practices that maximizes current tools to expand their use in data-scarce SSA contexts
- Improving how modeling is currently done, including new innovations around the cost-benefit analysis element of modeling
- Exploring alternative analytical approaches to the policy prioritization challenge outside of modeling altogether
Funding Information
- Awards of $100,000 USD are made in Phase I.
- Phase I awardees have one opportunity to apply for a follow-on Phase II award of up to $1,000,000 USD.
Eligibility Criteria
- GCE is open to both foreign and domestic organizations, including non-profit organizations, for-profit companies, international organizations, government agencies, and academic institutions.
- The Foundation is looking for:
- Approaches should help countries prioritize which policies they should focus on when they are faced with a wide range of options – a related but distinct challenge from assessing the quality or feasibility of a single, already-identified policy choice, which is not the focus of this Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) call for proposals.
- Approaches can already have been proven in other disciplines and sectors (e.g., behavioral economics, data science, web crowd-sourcing, or the infrastructure sector), but not yet have been validated for policy prioritization in low-income countries.
- Approaches can be stand-alone or coupled with additional tools and methods, and can be either a long-term approach or paired with short-term, demand-responsive policy technical assistance.
- Approaches or models should yield detailed and specific recommendations that will enable countries to unambiguously allocate budgets consistent with their policy choices.
- Approaches should be suitable for the SSA context and based on data with demonstrated availability, e.g., they should not consist of economic modeling of returns on investment that are based on very high-quality, comprehensive data sets.
- Approaches should be distinct from and not duplicate ongoing work by the Agricultural Development team that is outside the scope of this call for proposals: literature reviews reflecting various country’s pathways towards IAT; expert consultations and convenings to learn about new tools and policy approaches; and diagnostic reports identifying “binding constraints” to achieving IAT through methods such as benchmarking, empirical research, price distortion analysis, consultations with the private sector and other information.
How to Apply
Applicants can apply online via given website.
For more information, please visit Grand Challenges Explorations.