1. Catholic Relief Services
Catholic Relief Services (CRS) was founded in 1943 by the Catholic Bishops of the United States to serve World War II survivors in Europe and has since then expanded in size to reach more than 100 million poor and vulnerable people in 101 countries on five continents. CRS responds to major emergencies, fighting disease and poverty, and nurturing peaceful and just societies, through its deepened expertise in three signature program areas (SPAs) of emergency response & recovery, agriculture and health.
CRS’ Ethiopia program has been working in Ethiopia since 1958. Currently, it has activities focusing on relief assistance and emergency response, household and community resilience building, microfinance, health including nutrition and water, sanitation & hygiene (WASH), and agriculture & natural resources management.
CRS Ethiopia through its livelihood for resilience-Oromia (LRO) project established a small grant mechanism to “buy down risks” to create incentives for engaging the private sectors, research centers, Universities and NGOs/CSOs at LRO implementation woreda’s. The main target of the grant is to support the introduction of new products/technologies, expanding existing good experiences/process or services that can be easily adopted by LRO project beneficiaries and which will result in increase in production, production efficiency and quality on selected Value chain crops and livestock by LRO. Wheat, Maize, Haricot beans, Onions, Cabbage, red chili pepper, potato/sweet potato, Live animals (sheep and goat), Ox fattening, poultry and Honey are the prioritized crops and livestock through the project.
2. Background
LRO is a household and community resilience building activity implemented by CRS and Meki Catholic Secretariat (MCS) which runs from February 1, 2017 through January 31, 2022. The key objectives/purposes of the activity are:
· Increased income and diversification through crop opportunities;
· Increased income and diversification of off-farm livelihood options;
· Increased income from gainful employment; and
· Increased innovation, scaling and sustainability of livelihood pathways.
The LRO activity is implemented in nine woredas from three zones of (East Shoa, Arsi and West Arsi) in Oromia regional state. The target woredas are Negelle Arsi, Shalla, Siraro, Adami Tulu Jido Kombolcha (ATJK), Ziway Dugda, Dodota, Sire, Heben Arsi and Boset. The activity aims to reach 30,624 productive safety net program (PSNP) benefitting households (HHs) in the project life through different approaches.
3. Objectives
The implementation of the Innovation fund will result in the development of business opportunities to enable the cooperative enterprises, producers, and/or small and medium enterprises, in alliance with the public and /or private sectors,1) to increase their competitiveness and 2) to support small scale farmers’ access to inputs, equipment, technology, skill and other services 3, help address the constraints that affect functioning the crop and livestock value chains
4. Proposal outline
All interested and eligible organization can apply for the grant opportunity and should submit well organized proposal (Maximum of 15 pages) with all legal documents for review by technical committee. The outline of the proposal should include at least the below points:
- General information about the applicant organization,
- Brief history on the business of the organization, relevant experiences in the focus areas of the innovation fund
- Brief description of the proposed activity with the small grant and its contribution to the prioritized crop and livestock value chains indicated on the first page,
- Expected result of the activity and its direct contributions to the poor farmers,
- Detail cost break down indicating costs to be covers from the grant and own sources,
- Time table per activity. For detail please look Annex B: Proposal application template
5. Key working relationships
The Innovation fund recipients will closely work with the LRO-Innovation Fund Technical Advisor with close supervision with LRO- Chief of Party.
6. Place of performance
The intervention should benefit the LRO project beneficiaries directly or indirectly, so the performance area is LRO implementation woreda’s listed on the first and second pages of this call for application to innovation fund grants
7. Period of performance
The period of performance is till end of September 2019 and based on the nature of the activity and with discussion no cost extension may be considered.
8. Financing
Amount of Financing: The CRS will provide matching grants with CRS cost contribution no greater than 50% of the project proposal cost for private sectors and 30-40% of the project for government offices including research centers and universities.
Counterpart: As mentioned above, the Innovation Fund Initiative will support the proposals that are supported in a cost contribution approach, for which a contribution from the applicant beneficiaries is required of to share per the percentage indicated above for different institutions. This contribution may be in cash or in kind. The following will be considered in kind contributions: infrastructure, equipment, working capital, technologies, land and technical assistance, other services among other items. Counterpart funds are only those that have not been financed with CRS or IP resources.
9. Evaluation and Selection
Proposals will be evaluated by CRS technical committee composed of technical and operation staffs with in a period of 15 working days after receiving proposals with all legal documents. The evaluation will be mainly based on technical feasibility, linkages and contribution to the prioritized value chains, consideration for environment, youth and gender, value for money etc. The Chief of party for LRO will further review the evaluation within 7 days after receiving the evaluation of the technical committee.
Annex-A LRO project Target woredas and Number of Kebeles with PSNP population:
Zone | Woreda | Total PSNP population | Remark |
Awest Arsi | Shalla | 30,829 |
|
Siraro | 21,707 |
| |
Heben Arsi | 5,155 |
| |
| Negelle Arsi | 26,330 |
|
East Shoa | ATJK | 23,759 |
|
Boset | 5,077 |
| |
Arsi | Sire | 12,243 |
|
| Dodota | 11,441 |
|
| Ziway Dugda | 9,329 |
|
Total | 145,870 |
|
Eligibility Requirements
- Has a legal presence or allowed to work at LRO intervention woreda’s,
- Be cooperative enterprises, producers, and/or small and medium enterprises, private sectors, MFI, research centers, universities, or key stakeholders in the value chains,
- Have financial recording system in place (accounting system) that enables the beneficiary to analyze its
financial status,
- Be legally constituted and up-to-date with their fiscal responsibilities,