Angola and Lesotho Scientists Come Together to Write High Quality Collaborative Grant Proposals under APPSA

The Center for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA) is hosting a virtual writeshop under the Agricultural Productivity Program for Southern Africa (APPSA) with scientists from the Republic of Angola and the Kingdom of Lesotho. The workshop, which started from the 28th and will run until the 30st of June 2021 is planned to develop 11 high quality collaborative grant proposals to be jointly implemented in both countries. The process is being facilitated by experts from the Agricultural Research Council (ARC) from the Republic of South Africa (RSA).

Specifically, the writeshop seeks to achieve the following: (i) To facilitate the writing process of 11 R&D proposals identified from the original APPSA Countries; (ii) To consolidate collaborative research teams and initiate collaboration amongst Scientists when developing the proposals; (iii)  To facilitate harmonization of research titles and adaptation to the national and regional priorities; and (iv) To discuss and reach consensus on a plan for completion of quality proposals for timely submission within time frames indicated by CCARDESA.

APPSA is a six-year World Bank funded program with regional coordination by CCARDESA. The project is currently under implementation in Angola and Lesotho facilitating the establishment of Regional Centers of Leadership (RCoLs) on Cassava and Horticulture, respectively. Previously (from 2013 to January 2020), APPSA was implemented in Malawi (Maize RCoL), Mozambique (Rice RCoL) and Zambia (Legumes RCoL). The three APPSA pilot countries have implemented together a total of 74 collaborative R&D sub-projects.

The 11 projects which scientists from Angola and Lesotho are focusing on for the ongoing three days writeshop, were extracted and adapted from the previous APPSA implementing countries considering current local and regional needs. Indeed, APPSA is operationalized through the implementation of joint regional R&D sub-projects.

The writeshop has adopted an approach that includes plenary discussions and working groups. For plenaries, scientists are exposed to guidelines and procedures on the proposal development process. Scientists are then split into smaller working groups to generate fundable R&D proposals.

After the writeshop, proposals will be refined and subjected to a review process to identify winning proposals, which should be jointly and simultaneously implemented by Scientists from both Angola and Lesotho. Results are expected to benefit implementing countries with spill over effects in other countries at SADC level.

Approved proposals must be led by a Principal Investigator (PI) from one of the implementing countries and co-Principal Investigator(s) from the other. This is to allow a broadened discussion of agricultural research topics and accommodate the regional perspective in the implementation of APPSA R&D sub-projects.

This writeshop comes after a Proposal Writing training which was hosted in Mid-June 2021, in which the same scientists were capacitated on how to prepare winning research proposals.