Three agricultural innovations win first round of the Ukama Ustawi Scaling Fund
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Figure: Featured image (L-R): A Kenyan farmer using a mobile phone in the field; varietal identification in Ethiopia; and a community leader in Debre Berhan, in central Ethiopia helping protect and rebuild the area’s soil. Photo credits: Neil Palmer/CIAT, Apollo Habtamu/ILRI, and Georgina Smith/CIAT.
CGIAR 28 February 2024
A “Scaling Fund” was launched late last year to help early-stage African innovators think through and formulate “last-mile” efforts to reach as many farmers as possible, specifically by helping them to mitigate, and adapt to, climate change.
The Fund was launched on 25 October 2023 by the CGIAR Regional Research Initiative on Diversification in East and Southern Africa (better known as Ukama Ustawi) and the International Livestock Research Initiative (ILRI), with the support of the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The Scaling Fund enables innovations developed by CGIAR and its partners 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 the innovators to remove discernible bottlenecks to adoption of innovations and to explore new opportunities.
True to its Shona-Swahili name, ‘Ukama Ustawi’ (denoting ‘partnership’ and ‘well-being’), 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 by improving extension services and governance frameworks, supporting small and medium enterprises, and adopting a gender and social inclusion lens.
Following a rigorous evaluation process by Ukama Ustawi 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.
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