European Union/Sierra Leone Agro-Tech Development Support

Deadline: 1-Jun-21

The European Union (EU) has announced a call for proposals for Agro-Tech development to support and promote green and circular economy in Sierra Leone.

The priorities of this call for proposals are therefore:

Promote innovation technology along the value chain
Promote livelihood of rural communities as a way to reduce degradation of natural resources and biodiversity.

Objectives

Specific Objective (lot 1): Promote sustainable value chains in the agro-industry sector through innovation technology. Agro-industry comprises food and non-food products from crops, livestock, fisheries including forestry. Excluding food crops used for biofuels, tobacco and Genetically Modified Organism (GMO).

Expected results for lot 1 are:
- Adoption of innovation technology and sustainable production and processing practices.
- Job created, supported or sustained (gender and age disaggregated).
- Improved value chain performance (added value, productivity, competitiveness, etc.)

Type of eligible actions for lot 1 (indicative):

Digital market solutions
Eco-packaging and bio-plastic solutions
Sustainable energy for agro-industry (including fishery industry) development
Energy efficient business solutions (digital or not)
Climate smart technology solutions
By-product and waste valorisation
Organic certified value chain
Agricultural finance and risk management digital solutions
Digital advisory services and solutions
Digital data collection for decision making and policy monitoring

Specific Objective (lot 2): Promote livelihood of rural communities as a way to reduce degradation of natural resources and biodiversity.

Expected result for lot 2:
- Increased hectares of land under sustainable natural resources management practices.
- Adoption of sustainable practices
- Job created, supported or sustained (gender and age disaggregated).

Type of eligible actions for lot 2 (indicative):

Agro-forestry business initiatives
Sustainable use of biomass for cooking energy solutions
Eco-tourism initiatives
Ecosystem services

Funding Information

The overall indicative amount made available under this call for proposals is EUR 8.000.000 The contracting authority reserves the right not to award all available funds. If the allocation indicated for a specific lot cannot be used due to insufficient quality or number of proposals received, the contracting authority reserves the right to reallocate the remaining funds to another lot. Indicative allocation of funds by lot:
- Lot 1: EUR 2,500,000
- Lot 2: EUR 5,500,000

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, Private Sector Organisations, Farmer Organisations & Cooperatives, Community Based Organisations, private legal entities and international organisation (inter-governmental) as defined by Article 156 of the EU Financial Regulation and
be established in a Member State of the European Union or be in compliance with the rules on nationality and origin
This obligation does not apply to international organisations
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.

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 entity(ies)

The lead applicant and its co-applicant(s) may act with affiliated entit (ies).
Only the following entities may be considered as affiliated entities to the lead applicant and/or to coapplicant(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, as defined in Directive 2013/34/EU 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.