Call for proposal

                                                  RUFORUM Entrepreneurship Challenge Program (RECAP)

                                                       Call for Establishment of Agribusiness Incubation Hubs,

                                                                               01 March, 2019

                                                                                        For

                                                  Southern Africa (University of Eswatini and University of Zambia)

                                                  West Africa (Njala University and University of Liberia)

                                                  East Africa (Ndejje University and Muni University, University of Juba)

The Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) in partnership with The MasterCard Foundation is implementing an eight year programme “Transforming African Agricultural Universities to meaningfully contribute to Africa’s growth and development (TAGDev)”. The TAGDev Programme seeks to transform African agricultural universities and their graduates to better respond to developmental challenges through enhanced application of science, technology, business and innovation for rural agricultural transformation. Under the TAGDev, a focus towards developing a critical mass of young business leaders by providing a supporting environment where startups, innovations and disruptive ideas from universities are fast tracked to service communities and nurture enterprises driven and led by youth in Africa has been envisioned. This will be delivered through the RUFORUM Agricultural Enterprises Challenge Program (RECAP).   

The RECAP is therefore designed to strengthen university entrepreneurship education and impact by supporting the development/ strengthening of Agri-Enterprise Innovation Hubs (AIHs) at universities that will support the development of agricultural enterprises through entrepreneurial skills development. The RECAP Call for Proposals is described in this document with deadline date for receipt of all Proposals before or on 30^th April 2019.  A transparent, competitive process is proposed to select seven university based projects with maximum grants of up to $50,000 each to establish/strengthen AIH and implement support to agribusiness development in Africa.

For this call specific RUFORUM member universities are eligible to apply.

          Important dates for the Call are as below:

1. Deadline for FULL Proposals to RUFORUM Secretariat by 30^th April, 2019
2. Compliance Review and send to External Reviewers by 3^rd May, 2019
3. Communication of results of the review process to applicants 24^th May, 2019
4. Technical Committee Decision  31^st May, 2019
5. Communication of selection results by 4^th June, 2019
6. Submission of revised proposals 15^th June, 2019
7. Grant Agreements Received by 25^th June, 2019
8. Funds Disbursed by 30^th June, 2019
9. Project effective date 1^st July, 2019

For more information please email Research and Innovation unit. Email: cgs@ruforum.org