Africa-Brazil

Brazil and the Gates Foundation Join Up to Improve Health and Development in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia

november 01, 2011

BRASILIA, Brazil -- The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation today announced a partnership with the government of Brazil aimed at improving agricultural productivity among small farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The Memorandum of Understanding with the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation (ABC) will lead to collaboration on a number of potential projects ranging from developing more productive and nutritious staple crops, improving soil and water management techniques, as well as reducing crop loss after harvest. This agreement follows the recent announcement of the foundation’s partnership with the Chinese Government’s Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) to support innovative research and development (R&D) and manufacturing of new products for global health and agriculture.

The Gates Foundation also announced a $2.5 million grant to the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace, developed by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) to promote development in Africa through agricultural innovation.

“Three-quarters of the world’s poorest people get their food and income from farming small plots of land,” said Sam Dryden, director of Agricultural Development for the Gates Foundation. “Brazil’s advanced technical expertise in tropical agriculture, in addition to its success in designing innovative programs for smallholder farmers, puts them in a great position to work closely with developing countries to reduce poverty and achieve food security.”

“Our partnership with the Gates Foundation is a breakthrough. Through joint activities focused on capacity building, applied research and technology transfer, our aim is to improve the productivity of small-scale farming and reduce hunger and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia,” said Minister Marco Farani, director of ABC.

At this week’s G20 Summit in Cannes, France, Bill Gates, co-chair of the foundation, will deliver a report calling on G20 countries to continue to build on the unprecedented progress in health and development achieved in the last decade.

Gates’ report will outline how innovations and partnerships in health and agriculture can help increase global stability and put the poorest countries and people on a long-term path to economic growth and equity. The report calls out Brazil and partnerships like this as examples of a dynamic, rapidly emerging country using its technical expertise and resources in partnership with other countries to make important contributions to global development.

The partnership between the Gates Foundation and the Brazilian government extends beyond agriculture to also include global health issues. Earlier this month, the foundation and the Brazilian Ministry of Health agreed to work together towards improving global vaccine access and promoting health innovation among Brazilian scientists. Brazil’s commitment to public health, its investment in health R&D and established vaccine manufacturing capacity provide a strong basis for this collaboration, which will address global health priorities shared by both partners.

Over the past several decades, rapidly emerging economies such as Brazil, China and India have seen growth rates rise and poverty rates fall sharply. In the past 10 years, for example, Brazil lifted over 10 million people out of poverty through innovative social programs aimed at eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.

Closed round selections

march 28, 2011

Results of the closed round of proposal selection are now available. Four proposals were selected for funding. Please click here for a list of the selected proposals

DFID funding opportunity

march 28, 2011

DFID opens a call for proposals as part of a new DFID-ESRC research programme on Growth, closing date 26 May. For further information please check: www.esrc.ac.uk/DFID-ESRCgrowth

World Bank ARD days

march 23, 2011

The Marketplace team will present and debate the Marketplace initiative in the session “South-South Cooperation for Agriculture Innovation” during the World Bank ARD days. The session will take place on March 23rd from 9:30-11:30am, Washington D.C. time. Participants will join in person or via video conference. The agenda and powerpoint presentations will be made available in the “documents” page of the website.

Marketplace initiative: first phase document

february 06, 2011

The preliminary, portuguese, version of the document describing the first phase of the Marketplace initiative is now available for download and comments. Please visit the “Documents” page on the website or click the button “Marketplace Document” on the initial page of the website. Your comments are welcome. Please use the track changes feature in MS word to make your comments and send us the file via email or simply send your comments to us in the body of an email message (contact@africa-brazil.org).

Embrapa offers courses on maize and soy to African agronomists

january 24, 2011

Applications are opened to the courses of maize production systems for family agriculture and soy cultivation, directed to citizens of the African countries that maintain diplomatic relationships with Brazil and that have a university degree in Agronomy. There are 25 vacancies to each of the courses. The trainning will be conducted in Brazil, between April 4th and 15th, 2011. The selected individuals will have their travel, lodging and food expenses covered by the Brazilian Cooperation Agency (ABC). The deadline for applications is February 18th and can be completed at the ABC website (http://www.abc.gov.br/ on the link: Diálogo Brasil-África / Brazil-Africa Dialogue / Dialogue Brésil-Afrique).

For further information please contact Ms Guida Gorga: guida.gorga@embrapa.br

Proposal submissions - closed round

january 12, 2011

A total of 33 full proposals were received by the deadline on December 17th. Announcement of winning proposals are expected for mid to late February 2011.

Contracts for funded projects

december 20, 2010

The contracts for the 6 projects selected for funding have been submitted for signature. Implementation is expected to start in January 2011.

FULL PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

december 10, 2010

Deadline for full proposal submission is in about a week, December 17th!

ONLINE SYSTEM

december 03, 2010

Online system is now open to submit full proposal for the closed round!

Updated documents and feedback

december 01, 2010

Updated guidelines, budget and workplan template available in the Documents page. Please check!

The feedback on the previously submitted pre and full proposals has been sent to the respective leaders. Please check your email!

Africa-Brazil Event Invitation, October 6th and 7th, 2010

august 23, 2010

Important: African and Brazilian proponents of all the 61 eligible pre-proposals are invited to attend the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace Forum in Brasília, Brazil, on October 6th and 7th, 2010. These include the proponents of the 20 eligible pre-proposals selected to develop full proposals and the proponents of the 41 eligible pre-proposals that, at this time, were not selected to present a full proposal but that will have the opportunity to interact with their partner and further elaborate and refine their initial idea during the Forum. The costs of the travel will be fully covered by the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace. A formal invitation as well as instructions for travel arrangements will be sent to each proponent in due time.

Announcing the selected Pre-proposals

august 17, 2010

A total of 61 eligible pre-proposals were received by the Steering Committee (SC) of the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace by the deadline, on July 30th.

Follow this link to access the list of 20 pre-proposals.

Proponents of the 20 pre-proposals are invited to prepare and submit a full proposal according to the “Guidelines for Full Proposals” available on the website, under “Documents”. The deadline for submission of full proposals is September 2nd, 2010.

Please note that the online submission system for full proposals will be available on Monday, August 23rd. We encourage you to download the guidelines for full proposal and to start working on it off line immediately. Once the system is available you can copy and paste the necessary information on the appropriate fileds.

Important: Proponents of all 61 pre-proposals are invited to attend the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace Forum. The Forum will take place in Brasília, Brazil, on October 6th and 7th, 2010. A formal invitation will be sent to each proponent. During the October event, proponents of pre-proposals that were not selected at this time will have the opportunity to interact with their partner and elaborate and refine their initial idea.

The Africa–Brazil research initiative aims to boost African agriculture

august 08, 2010

Flickr/CIAT/Neil Palmer

[OUAGADOUGOU, BURKINA FASO] An ambitious development partnership aimed at strengthening agricultural collaboration between Africa and Brazil was launched at the 5th African Agriculture Science Week in Burkina Faso last week (21 July).

The initiative — the Africa-Brazil Agriculture Innovation Marketplace — recently announced in Brazil, and now formally launched, aims to enhance South–South knowledge and technology transfer and stimulate policy dialogue between the two regions.

It will also promote collaborative research projects, according to Paulo Duarte, technical coordinator at Embrapa, the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation. He told SciDev.Net that funding for joint project proposals with Embrapa for the coming two years will be approved at a meeting in Brazil in October. Up to seven projects will be selected from more than 40 proposals already submitted.

“Innovation cannot happen without development,” said Monty Jones, co-chair of the new marketplace and executive director of the Forum for Agriculture Research in Africa (FARA), which signed a memorandum of understanding with Embrapa, formalising the marketplace launch at the event in Burkina Faso.

Africa has the potential to be the world’s food basket, said Jones, but poor technology and innovation adoption remain a constraint. This would be greatly improved with better exchange of science and technology knowledge, he said.

Jones praised the Africa–Brazil initiative as a major step towards improving knowledge and innovation to boost African agriculture. He said Africa had developed some promising technologies, such as banana tissue culture and New Rice for Africa, but too many other technologies remained on the shelf or had made little impact because of poor dissemination of information.

“Brazil has come a long way to feed its people because of an innovative approach to science and technology,” said Duarte. “Working with Brazil, Africa should not reinvent the wheel but adopt some of these methodologies to catalyse its agricultural development.”

In May this year, Brazil invited ministers and officials from more than 30 African countries to a meeting, ‘Brazil-Africa Dialogue on Food Security, Combating Hunger and Rural Development’, organised by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations, where the marketplace was first announced.

The marketplace website, where researchers can find partners, ‘match-make’ and apply for collaborative research funding, is now live. Apart from Embrapa and FARA, partners include the International Fund for Agricultural Development, the Department for International Development in the United Kingdom, the World Bank, and African national and sub-regional agricultural research and development organisations.

DEADLINE HAS BEEN EXTENDED!

july 19, 2010

The deadline for applications (pre-proposals) has been extended to July 30th, and we have good news to share: more than 40 pre-proposals have been submitted already!

The Steering Committe decided to extend the deadline in order to be as inclusive as possible since the Marketplace will be presented at the FARA Assembly in Burkina Faso next week.

We expect this to generate further awareness regarding the initiative. Hence, we would like to extend the opportunity to all those that did not have the chance to apply before.

What's new

july 05, 2010

- Embrapa will attend the FARA General Assembly in Burkina Faso during the 5th Africa Agricultural Science Week between July 19th and 24th, 2010.

- The Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace was presented to the Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer of the United Kingdom Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) during the workshop “UK-Brazil Agricultural Collaboration” in Brasilia, Brazil, on June 22nd, 2010.

- Embrapa’s President, Dr. Pedro Arraes, was interviewed by the Financial Times newspaper – “This is Africa” – regarding the increasing cooperation between Brazil and Africa in the agricultural sector, including the “Marketplace”. The link to the interview will be available as soon as it is published.

- Embrapa and FARA have been intensely disseminating information about the Marketplace. Embrapa’s President and the Head of the Secretariat for International Affairs held a video conference with the general directors and research and development directors of all Embrapa’s centers. Electronic information was distributed to all Embrapa’s scientists.

Folders and posters have been distributed to all Embrapa centers and interested colleagues have been connected with potential African partners. FARA has used its d-group networks enhanced by frequent reminders to reach stakeholders across the continent. All working groups associated with the five Networking Support Functions of FARA have been informed. In addition, FARA broadcasted the initiative during all meetings that have taken place so far including the CORAF/WECARD meeting, which brought stakeholders together from across the West and Central African sub-regions.

Launch of Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace

may 20, 2010

The launch of the Africa-Brazil Agricultural Innovation Marketplace (“Marketplace”) took place on May 10th, 2010 at Embrapa´s headquarter in Brasilia, DF, Brazil. The launch was part of the meeting “Brazil-Africa Dialogue on Food Security, Combating Hunger, and Rural Development” organized by the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Relations.

There were 300 participants in the Marketplace launch. Approximately 80% of the audience was represented by African ministers (35 countries) and their cabinet officials. The remaining of the participants included representatives of international and multilateral organizations, Brazilian officials and Embrapa representatives. The launch included an oral presentation by FARA and Embrapa followed by a 20-minute section on questions, comments, and suggestions from the audience. There was active participation of the audience with questions and comments presented by the African ministers.

All participants received a folder containing information about the marketplace. Informational posters were also strategically located around the building. In the first 4 days after the launch, the Marketplace website was accessed more than 200 times.

In addition, the appropriateness of the thematic areas chosen for collaborative projects in the marketplace was reinforced by the collaboration demands presented by ministers of 26 African countries during the bilateral meetings held with the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply and Embrapa’s Presidential Cabinet and Secretariat of International Relations.