Call for projects Promotion of family farming in West Africa – Pafao 2024

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The French Committee for International Solidarity (CFSI) has launched a Promotion of Family Farming in West Africa (Pafao) Program. The Promotion of Family Farming in West Africa (Pafao) program has been jointly supported, since 2009, by the Fondation de France and the French Committee for International Solidarity (CFSI). It benefits from a contribution from the JM.Bruneau Foundation (housed at the Fondation de France) and the French Development Agency (AFD). The Joint Action for West-Africa (Jafowa) program participates in the capitalization component of the program. The Network of West African Farmers’ and Producers’ Organizations (Roppa) is a member of the steering and monitoring committee. The program supports or has supported more than 330 initiatives since 2009 (annual “general” call for projects and 6 Coup de Pouce calls.

The general objective of the Pafao program aims to:

Promote local initiatives to strengthen access to healthy, quality food, produced by viable and sustainable West African family farming and processed in the country or in the sub-region, while ensuring equitable distribution of value added to value chains (this is the present call for projects) ;
Capitalize (produce knowledge) to draw useful lessons beyond projects, for organizations and for advocacy actors. The challenge is to contribute to documenting the sustainability of this agricultural and food model likely to challenge decision-makers to take these issues into account in public policies;
Support the construction of scaling strategies so that successful initiatives do not remain marginal but occupy more economic space.

Challenges

The program provides financial support for local and farmer-led initiatives in West Africa to respond in a sustainable way to the growing demand of domestic markets, and to ensure a better distribution of added value. These initiatives meet two challenges:
Strengthen and/or maintain the availability of local quality products from sustainable family farming in rural and urban markets – for mass consumption: How can sustainable family farming continue to supply domestic markets and better satisfy the most vulnerable populations, thereby increasing resilience in the event of a crisis? How can producers, processors, traders and consumers organize themselves to better respond to each other’s needs and benefit from a better distribution of the added value? How can the income generated by family farming strengthen the resilience of actors in the sector in the event of a crisis?
Developing sustainable farming practices/sustainable food systems: How can family farming adapt to climate change and prepare for future crises (e.g. war in Ukraine and rising input prices in 2022)? How can it contribute to the preservation of natural resources and biodiversity, whether in the production, processing or marketing phases? How can they guarantee the diversification of production and the variety and nutritional quality of local products?

Pafao program Benefits

In order to encourage applicants to develop diversified partnerships, particularly local ones, the Pafao program will not finance the entirety of a project (maximum 70%). The financing plans will mention the other financial partners requested and/or acquired, as well as the planned share of self-financing.

Two types of initiatives will be supported:

Short-term projects (one year), for an amount granted from 10,000 to 18,000 euros;
Multi-annual projects (maximum three years), for an amount, over the entire period, of a maximum of 36,000 euros for two years and 60,000 euros for three years (paid in annual installments in view of the project progress).

Eligible Criteria for Pafao program

This call for projects is open to non-profit legal entities:

To West African farmer organizations (POs);
To support NGOs active in West Africa or Europe to the extent that they act with local partners;
To research and/or training organizations.
Be registered for more than one year;
Having previously carried out actions in the agricultural and food sector.

Important: This call is reserved for projects carried out in partnership by at least two organizations, one West African and the other European (obligatory EU member country). If the sponsor is a West African organization, then the main partner must be European. Conversely, if the project leader is a European organization, then the main partner must be West African. This partnership must be formalized and pre-existing the project for which the grant is requested.