Call for Proposals: Tsogolo la thanzi (TSOLATA) Phase II – Scaling up Homegrown School Feeding

Deadline: 15-Jun-23

The European Commission (EC) is inviting proposals to quantify the effects of home grown school meals on targeted students and communities on indicators of interest.

Objectives

• The global objective of this call for proposals is: increased solid evidence for policy decisions on school meals.
• The priority of this call for proposals is to conduct a randomized control trial to quantify the effects of Tsolata II interventions on three main domains of interest. The first are children’s nutritional outcomes, the second children’s learning outcomes, and the third income and welfare effects on surrounding smallholder farmers from whom the food to prepare the meals will be sourced.

Sectors or Themes: Education, nutrition, agriculture and rural development.

Funding Information

• The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 1 500 000.
• Any grant requested under this call for proposals must not exceed the below maximum amount:
  • minimum amount: EUR 1 200 000
  • maximum amount: EUR 1 500 000
• Duration: The initial planned duration of an action may not be lower than 40 months nor exceed 48 months.

Types of Activity

• Randomized controlled trial (RCT) exercise to measure the outcomes of interest for Tsolata II, such as human capital outcomes for the children and income, welfare and market participation among smallholders.
• RCT will include:
  • Baseline survey in all selected schools and ECDs (Early Childhood Development centres) of the three new districts of Tsolata II, as well as with smallholder farmers in their catchment areas.
  • Creation of the control group before the intervention is rolled out.
  • Follow up survey(s) in both treatment and control groups to assess changes in indicators of interest.

Location: Actions must take place in Malawi, tentatively in the following districts: Mzimba, NkhataBay, and Rumphi.

Eligibility Criteria

• Lead applicant(s)
  • In order to be eligible for a grant, the lead applicant must:
    • be a legal person and
    • be a specific type of organisation such as: non-governmental organisation, public sector operator, local authority, international (inter-governmental) organization
    • be a specific type of organisation such as: international research institutions or non-governmental organisations or any legal entity with the capacity to contribute to the purpose of the grant, and
    • be established in6 a Member State of the European Union or in one of the countries eligible for NDICI- Global Europe
    • be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and affiliated entity(ies), not acting as an intermediary and
    • have a proven track record of conducting randomized controlled trials, preferably on school meals programmes and
    • working experience in Malawi would be considered an asset.
• Co-applicant(s)
  • Co-applicants participate in designing and implementing the action, and the costs they incur are eligible in the same way as those incurred by the lead applicant.
  • Co-applicants must satisfy the eligibility criteria as applicable to the lead applicant himself.
  • Co-applicants must sign the mandate form
• Affiliated entities
  • The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entity(ies). Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to co-applicant(s):
    • Only entities having a structural link with the applicants (i.e. the lead applicant or a co-applicant), in particular a legal or capital link.
    • This structural link encompasses mainly two notions:
      • Control on the annual financial statements, consolidated financial statements and related reports of certain types of undertakings:
        • Entities affiliated to an applicant may hence be:
          • Entities directly or indirectly controlled by the applicant (daughter companies or first-tier subsidiaries). They may also be entities controlled by an entity controlled by the applicant (granddaughter companies or second-tier subsidiaries) and the same applies to further tiers of control;
          • Entities directly or indirectly controlling the applicant (parent companies). Likewise, they may be entities controlling an entity controlling the applicant;
          • Entities under the same direct or indirect control as the applicant (sister companies).
      • Membership, i.e. the applicant is legally defined as a e.g. network, federation, association in which the proposed affiliated entities also participate or the applicant participates in the same entity (e.g. network, federation, association,) as the proposed affiliated entities.

For more information, visit European Commission.