Deadline: 23-Aug-2024
The Oxford Policy Management Limited (OPML) is inviting you or your organisation to submit a proposal for the Data and Evidence to end Extreme Poverty (DEEP) Ethiopia Challenge Fund.
The DEEP Challenge Fund will award small and medium grants to national researchers working on national poverty reduction.
Preference for awards will be given to proposals that actively engage national policy makers in the identification of research topics that address national strategy, policy and programmatic issues, and which involve policy makers in the communication and uptake of results.
The Ethiopia Challenge Fund is launching after the recent successful launch of DEEP Challenge Fund in Tanzania in March 2024, and grants for research in Bangladesh will become available in due course.
Grants will be allocated to organisations and/or individuals, following a competitive and transparent bidding process.
Aims
- The Ethiopia DEEP Challenge Fund aims to encourage national researchers and analysts to develop and deliver small and medium research projects that would help to generate insights and enhance national strategies, policies and programmes addressing poverty and vulnerability.
- Applicants are expected to contribute to the aims through one or more of the following:
- Developing their own ideas and research proposals
- Expanding on and apply the techniques, ideas and insights that DEEP has been developing over the last four years
- Analysing under-analysed datasets
- Undertaking small and innovative qualitative-quantitative studies to ignite further research
- Applicants could have the opportunity to be matched with research partners from the DEEP consortium (depending on availability) if their proposal fits with ongoing DEEP work and the applying team would be interested in and benefit from support from other academic partners. Proposals can include partnering with members of the DEEP consortium, especially if this facilitates:
- The learning of new analysis techniques (such as analysing Big Data, small area estimation techniques, or poverty dynamics and vulnerability using synthetic panels),
- New insights about the drivers of poverty (such as climate change, COVID, urbanisation, migration, conflict, social exclusion and social norms), or
- Analysis on ‘what works?’ in relation to policies and programmes that include poverty reduction objectives.
- Grants will be allocated to organisations and/or individuals following a competitive bidding process.
Scope
- Applications covering a wide thematic area that relates to poverty will be accepted, as the DEEP programme uses a multidimensional understanding of poverty. Applicants should emphasise how their proposed project explicitly contributes to research on poverty in instances where the scope of the project may otherwise be less obviously related to DEEP’s core objectives.
- Applications are particularly encouraged to propose poverty-related research in the following areas and pertaining to the following groups, with all proposals encouraged to take a gender-lens:
- Climate change and climate resilience
- Nutrition
- Conflict
- Land tenure
- Urbanisation and rural to urban migration
- Social protection – including targeting, impact and informal social protection
- Employment
- Social norms
- Psychosocial dimensions of poverty
- Utilisation of existing DEEP Small Area Estimation methods
- People with disabilities
- Pastoralists and remote communities
- Children and Youth, including first 1000 days
- Women and girls
Funding Information
- The maximum limit in this application is £49,999, although they expect and encourage a range of proposals, from £5,000 up to this limit. At the time of writing, this is the equivalent of between 370,000 ETB and 3,700,000 ETB.
Benefits of being in the fund
- Being part of the fund offers a great opportunity for researchers and analysis. Benefits include:
- The advantages of possible collaborative work within the DEEP consortium
- Guidance and support from the DEEP team
- Quality assurance from the Ethiopia National Steering Committee, and
- The prospect of presenting research findings at the DEEP Scientific Conference in early 2025.
Eligibility Criteria
- Organisations, institutions, and individuals working on poverty reduction in Ethiopia are encouraged to apply for a Challenge Fund grant.
- They will give priority to Ethiopia-based researchers. They would also welcome partnerships between established research institutions and lesser-known institutions, or organisations and individuals. Proposals can include partnering with members of the DEEP consortium.
- They welcome partnerships between established research institutions and lesser-known institutions, or organisations and individuals. Proposals can include partnering with members of the DEEP consortium.
For more information, visit Oxford Policy Management Limited (OPML).