Announcing the winners of a first round of funding to take agricultural innovations to scale in Africa

MacMillan, Susan. 2024. Announcing the winners of a first round of funding to take agricultural innovations to scale in Africa. Blog post. Montpellier, France: CGIAR System Organization. https://www.cgiar.org/news-events/news/announcing-the-winners-of-a-first-round-of-funding-to-take-agricultural-innovations-to-scale-in-africa/

A ‘Scaling Fund’ was launched late last year by the CGIAR Regional Research Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa, an initiative known also by its Shona-Swahili name, ‘Ukama Ustawi’ (denoting ‘partnership’ and ‘well-being’). This initiative supports climate-resilient agriculture and livelihoods in a dozen countries in East and Southern Africa. It helps millions of smallholders to intensify and diversify their maize-based farming while reducing their risks. It does this by improving extension services and governance frameworks, supporting small and medium enterprises, and adopting a gender and social inclusion lens. This initiative’s Scaling Fund was established specifically to help the region’s farmers to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change.

Following a rigorous evaluation process by a committee composed of Ukama Ustawi staff and external scaling experts, 3 applications out of total of 28 submissions from within CGIAR were selected for taking agricultural innovations in this region to scale.

The Scaling Fund enables high-impact CGIAR innovations to reach broader markets, serve more customers, and drive impactful change. The concepts underlying the Scaling Fund were developed and tested under previous CGIAR programs, including the CGIAR Research Program on Roots, Tubers and Banana (2017–2020). The Fund helps early-stage innovators to think through and effectively plan their ‘last-mile’ efforts to reach as many people as possible, removing discernible bottlenecks to adoption of innovations and exploring new opportunities.