Diversifying revenue in rural Africa through bio-based solutions

Call Updates

Dec 16, 2020 11:29:59 AM  

Call for proposals: H2020 – Sustainable Food Security: (H2020-SFS-2020-2, second stage).

The Commission and the Research Executive Agency have now completed the evaluation of the proposals submitted to the above-mentioned call and informed the applicants on 15 December 2020.

An overview of the evaluation results ('flash call info') is now available in the section "Additional documents" of the "Topic conditions and documents" tab of the correspondent topic page:

· CE-SFS-36-2020: Diversifying revenue in rural Africa through bio-based solutions.

The grant agreements are expected to be signed by May 2021.

Sep 15, 2020 1:55:08 PM

The H2020-SFS-2020-2 call for second-stage was closed on the 8th of September 2020. 51 proposals have been submitted in response to this call. The breakdown per topic is indicated below:

CE-SFS-36-2020: 8

The evaluation results are expected to be communicated to the applicants in December 2020.

May 6, 2020 3:06:37 PM

The generalised feedback, resulting after the 1st stage evaluation of this topic, is published on this page. To download the document, just expand the "Topic conditions and documents" area (i.e. click on '+ More'), scroll down until "Additional documents" and the generalised feedback can be downloaded in pdf.

Apr 22, 2020 4:04:25 PM

The Research Executive Agency (REA) has now completed the evaluation of the proposals submitted to the H2020- SFS-2020-2 first stage call. The following overall thresholds were applied:

CE-SFS-36-2020 - Diversifying revenue in rural Africa through bio-based solutions. 9

The results of the evaluation are as follows:

· CE-SFS-36-2020 RIA: 37 submitted proposals. 8 proposals are above threshold.

We recently informed the applicants about the evaluation results for their proposals. The Generalised feedback will be published around beginning of May 2020 on the topic page under "Topic conditions and documents" section.
It is expected that the first grant agreements will be signed around April 2021.

Feb 19, 2020 5:05:02 PM 

Corrigendum of Call update of 29/01/2020

The H2020-SFS-2020-2 call was closed on the 23rd of January 2020. 178 proposals have been submitted in response to this call. The breakdown per topic is indicated below:

CE-SFS-36-2020: 37

Jan 29, 2020 4:25:24 PM

The H2020-SFS-2020-2 call was closed on the 23rd of January 2020. 178 proposals have been submitted in response to this call. The breakdown per topic is indicated below:

CE-SFS-36-2020: 37

The evaluation results are expected to be communicated to the applicants in April 2020.

Oct 15, 2019 3:56 PM

The submission session is now available for: CE-SFS-36-2020 (RIA)

Diversifying revenue in rural Africa through bio-based solutions

ID: CE-SFS-36-2020
Focus area: Connecting economic and environmental gains - the Circular Economy (CE)
Type of action: RIA Research and Innovation action

Deadline Model : two-stage

Planned opening date: 15 October 2019

Deadline: 22 January 2020 17:00:00 Brussels time
2nd stage Deadline: 08 September 2020 17:00:00 Brussels time

Horizon 2020

Call name: Sustainable Food Security | Call ID: H2020-SFS-2018-2020

Topic Description

Specific Challenge:In many African regions, agriculture is predominantly subsistence-oriented, hence most farmers lack the means to invest on improving the productivity of their exploitation activities, or to undertake basic transformation of their produce. Low productivity and lack of economic diversification makes farmers vulnerable to food insecurity, and contribute to a continuous migration towards urban areas, especially among the younger generations.

In many locations, unsustainable practices generate serious impacts on the environment, such as deforestation for energy or for new agricultural land, or soil degradation, which further aggravate the vulnerability of rural populations.

Scope:Proposals shall screen existing bio-based technologies that can be adapted and successfully transferred to rural African contexts. The focus should be on simple, robust technologies that can be operated and maintained locally, and suitable for operation at farm, village or rural community level (including mobile systems). A variety of end-products can be considered[1], and the business models developed should be sustainable and highly circular. Although bio-fuels or bio-energy can be part of the end-products, projects focussing mainly on these outputs are not eligible.

The selected technologies shall be integrated into one existing agri-food system[2] without compromising food production, and without fundamentally changing established agricultural practices, provided that these are sustainable. The integrated value chain should be widely replicable, based on agricultural by-products or dedicated crops that can be incorporated through multi-cropping or intercropping practices, including agro-forestry. It shall be tested and adapted in real productive conditions, in an appropriate number of testing sites. A thorough assessment shall be performed on the agronomic, environmental, social and economic sustainability of the whole model, including gender issues and an assessment of potential risks. The project shall deliver practice guides and policy recommendations for deployment in new areas.

Projects should ensure solid collaboration between farmers, farmers associations, local industry, technology providers, research centres, extension services and policy makers. Development partners and relevant international organisations should be involved as appropriate. Proposals should include a task to cluster with other relevant projects involved in the EU-Africa R&I Partnership on FNSSA and with the cooperation platform established under SFS-33-2018[3]. Activities should also be foreseen to cluster with the other projects financed under this topic.

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of up to EUR 9 million would allow this specific scope to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude the submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.

Expected Impact:Proposed activities will deliver new and sustainable bio-based value chains that can be plugged into African agri-food systems. This will help rural communities to:

Increase and diversify agricultural income and foster savings and investment.
Enhance sustainability and reduce the environmental impact of domestic and economic activities, through e.g. reduced logging or nutrient recycling.
Develop new economic activities and sectors, thus creating new jobs and opportunities.
In the longer term results will contribute improving livelihoods, enhancing food security, increasing community resilience, and reducing rural migration.

Projects should also contribute increasing the innovation capacities of participating organisations, and reinforcing the scientific collaboration between the EU and Africa.

Cross-cutting Priorities:International cooperation
Gender

[1]Examples include fertilisers or soil improvers, feed, energy or fuels, soap, building or packaging materials, etc.

[2]Agro-food system shall be understood here as a characteristic combination of farming activities and (possibly) first-level transformation or conditioning of the farming outputs.

[3]The awarded project acronym is LEAP4FNSSA