Early this year, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the African Union (AU) estimated that 346 million people in Africa are affected by a food crisis with crop production between 58-70%, which is below average across the region. To respond to this challenge, the Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation) welcomes innovative projects proposing ways to adapt agricultural production to climate change in a bid to sustain productivity and promote food security.

Climate change and food security have an immutable link. Climate change has a cascading impact from agroecosystems to agricultural production, to the people and countries and ultimately consumers depending on reliable food production and availability. Africa is already and will continue to suffer the downstream effects of climate change, therefore, underlining a need to have climate adaptive food systems.

The ‘African Agriculture Climate Adaptation Research System’ funding call is being rolled out through the SFA Foundation’s Grand Challenges Africa (GC Africa) programme with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Grants of up to $100,000 will be provided to seed projects and up to $200,000 to transition to scale projects implemented over a period of 18-24 months.

The funding was announced today at the 2022 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting held in Brussels, Belgium.
The call “responds to existing food security challenges in the face of climate change and is geared towards increasing productivity to meet consumption demands and to limit further agricultural land expansion into natural ecosystems.

“When we are producing enough, we can reduce chronic hunger and malnutrition which leads to healthier and productive communities, and ultimately a prosperous Africa,” Simon Ndoria, GC Africa Programme Officer. 

The African agriculture climate adaptation research system funding will be given to innovative projects that strengthen research, evidence, and processes supporting agriculture-related adaptation planning. This also includes risk management and investment, intra-Africa research collaboration on data, data science, and modeling.

Further information for applicants:

• All applications, supporting documents should be submitted in English.
• Proposals should be sent through the SFA Foundation Agaseke grants management portal
• Applications close on 15 January 2023.
• For the call for proposals on the ‘African Agriculture Climate Adaptation Research System’ please visit the SFA Foundation funding page https://scienceforafrica.foundation/funding/african-agriculture-climate-adaptation-research-system-request-for-proposals
• For other calls issued by the GC Africa programme or by other programmes of the SFA Foundation, please visit the opportunities webpage Scienceforafrica.foundation/funding  
• Enquiries can be emailed to [email protected] with responses to enquiries shared on Monday – Friday from 0800 hrs – 1700 hrs EAT.

About the Science for Africa Foundation
The Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation) is a pan-African, non-profit, public charity organisation that supports strengthens, and promotes science innovation in Africa. The goal of the SFA Foundation is to address the continent’s most pressing developmental needs by generating scientific knowledge that solves problems and informs decision-making. Grand Challenges Africa (GC Africa) is a programme of the SFA Foundation that manages and supports the creation of extraordinary innovations that address health and developmental challenges in Africa. The programme awards seed and scale up grants to the continent’s most innovative and impressive solutions

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