Grant: Subsidy Soil Fertility Programme 2023

Subsidy Soil Fertility Programme
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a call for grant proposals for the Soil Fertility programme. On 24 January 2023. Application foor the grant continues until 31 March 2023.

Application forms are available for those interested in the programme to fill and submit.

Organisations with experience in achieving sustainable management of soil fertility in a way that contributes to ecologically sustainable improvements in food productivity and to increased resilience of small-scale food producers and/or pastoralists in Sub Sahara Africa are invited to apply for a grant.

The following points are trite in making sure that activities contribute as effectively as possible to the goals of the Programme:

Focus on integrated soil fertility management
Gender strategy
Embedded in local and national structures and aligned with prevailing policy and implementation plans.
Aligned functionally and effectively to one or more existing initiatives, preferably of regional governmental or intergovernmental organisations, aimed at strengthening smallscale farming systems. The initiatives should have a large geographical reach and target group. It is essential that alignment with such initiatives is institutionally anchored.
To be eligible for a grant, activities must be based on a theory of change (ToC) developed by the applicant directed achieving sustainable management of soil fertility in a way that contributes to ecologically sustainable improvements in food productivity and to increased resilience of small-scale food producers (arable and/or livestock farmers) in the Sahel/West Africa and East and Central Africa.

Results and indicators
The Programme focuses on support for activities that contribute directly to as a minimum, the following result areas of Dutch policy on food security, water and climate:
Farmland is converted to ecologically sustainable use;
Small-scale food producers, men and women, have raised their productivity;
Small-scale food producers, men and women, and their agro-ecological systems are less vulnerable to current and expected impacts of climate change and other shocks, thanks to increased resilience and/or reduced exposure.
Funding Information
The Minister is providing €200,000,000 in grant funding.
€100,000,000 is available for a grant for activities in the Sahel/West Africa;
€100,000,000 is available for a grant for activities in East and Central Africa.

Duration of the activities
The grant period is from 01-11-2023 up to and including 31-12-2033. For each region the grant amount will be disbursed in two phases: from 2023 to 2028 (phase 1) and from 2028 to 31-12- 2033). The grant will be prepaid in yearly instalments on the basis of liquidity forecasts.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will commission an external evaluation, to be conducted during the last year of phase 1, in Q2 of 2028, of the results achieved up to that time and giving an estimateof the chance of results being achieved as envisaged in phase 2.

Eligibility Criteria
Type of organisation
Not-for-profit organisations which possess legal personality under civil law (such as NGOs8 or knowledge institutions) and which have a track record in integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) and the development of small-scale farming systems.
Organisations may apply independently or join a consortium of organisations, one of which submits the application as lead party.
For-profit organisations do not qualify for a grant under this programme as independent applicant nor as lead party of a consortium.
An organisation may qualify for a grant only once under this programme as either lead party of a consortium or as independent applicant
There is no maximum on the number of consortia an organisation can participate in as coapplicant, even if it is has submitted another application as either a lead party or independent applicant.
Local and other governments, intergovernmental organisations and organisations in which a public authority is the sole shareholder (or the majority shareholder) are not eligible for a grant, and cannot therefore be an applicant, lead party or co-applicant.
For more information, visit Subsidy Soil Fertility Programme.