Innovations for smart family farming exposed to climate change in West Africa - GCCA + West Africa (GCCA + AO)
The GCCA+ - West Africa aims to participate in the regional west african effort to implement the Paris Agreement on climate through capacity building of regional institutions in west Africa, and by promoting the emergence of innovative solutions on the field to fortify climate resilence of rural and agricultural stakeholders. Indeed, all the countries of the ECOWAS zone (+ Chad and Mauritania) have included agriculture as a priority sector (adaptation and mitigation) for their National level Determined Contributions (NLDC). Dominated by family agriculture (main source of income and subsistence for 70% of the population), west african agriculture is grappling with difficulties to access funding to invest in sustainable production and scaling of proven technical solutions in order to address climate change and variability. Already facing structural challenges (progressive saturation of spaces, degradation of soil fertility, etc.), the region is confronted with the double phenomenon of climate variability and change which affect agricultural performance, supply stability, the occurrence of climate related risks and, consequently, income and food and nutrition security. Thus, the ECOWAS Commission is promoting « an integrated approach to processing and redirecting agricultural systems in order to durably and equitably increase agricultural productivity and income, boost adaptation and resilience against climate variability and change, and to sequester and/or reduce greenhouse gases when possible and appropriate (…) ». It has put in place the West African Alliance for climate smart agriculture , and bears today the definition of this call for project proposals operationalized by Expertise France.
This call for proposals spearheaded by ECOWAS is entrenched in the strategic frameworks at regional (ECOWAP 2025) and national (CDN). It constitutes one pf the main activities of Outcome 3 (EO3) of the GCCA + West Africa program:
EO3. Pilot adaptation projects, including solutions based on an ecosystemic approach, already tested and implemented in the ECOWAS countries and used as references for future replication are scaled (extension or replication).
All information is available in the guidelines.
An information session on this call for proposals will be organized in a dematerialized manner, in the form of a webinar, on 25 September at 10:00 UTC. More precise information relating to the information session will be posted at least one week in advance on the Expertise France and ARAA websites.
Applicants may send their questions by e-mail, at least 21 days before the deadline for submission of Concept Notes, to the address below, clearly indicating the reference of the call for proposals.
Expertise France is not obliged to provide clarification on questions received after this date.