USDA Seeking Expressions of Interest for Trilateral Partnership (U.S.-India-Africa)

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USDA is seeking Expressions of Interest from U.S. universities with strong, longstanding relationships with African agricultural universities — particularly one of the following: the University of Malawi/Bunda College of Agriculture, the University of Liberia/William R. Tolbert, Jr. College of Agriculture & Forestry, or Kenya/Egerton University — to strengthen their institutional capacity through a trilateral partnership with Indian universities.

To improve food security, the United States Government (USG) and the Government of India (GOI) launched a new partnership that brings together the capabilities of the U.S. and India to address poverty and hunger in India and around the world. Building on strong, preexisting relationships between U.S. colleges of agriculture and equivalent African and Indian institutions, USAID and USDA envision an innovative three-way partnership that can reach out to the private sector and other interested stakeholders to address the agricultural needs of Africa.

African colleges could use assistance to build capacity in a variety of areas including: research/higher education governance, administrative capacity (grants management, peer review, etc), teaching methodology, curriculums and teaching materials, and graduating students with the agribusiness skills essential to building market linkages and sustained growth of the sector. Indian universities have experience in innovative agricultural technologies that could have a substantial impact on food security in Africa.

The intent of this project is to combine those Indian strengths with U.S. university expertise in capacity building. U.S. universities will work with partner institutions in Africa and India to jointly develop and implement capacity building programs. These programs must effectively address and mitigate weaknesses and exploit opportunities for African agricultural education institutions to support national development objectives. More specifically, the U.S. partner will work with and mentor their Indian institutional partner to identify and organize project activities such as needs assessments, establishing training priorities, designing educational programs, and facilitating the coordination of the educational programs in cooperation with their Indian partners. That may include: selection of training participants for workshops and faculty exchange programs, providing international travel expenses for African participants, and monitoring and evaluating program effectiveness.

Level of Effort: The program is to be implemented over the course of 24 months.

Resources: $2.4 million over the life of the project will be divided among three partnerships.

Travel: Activities will take place in Africa and India.

There will be three individual partnerships (one each for Kenya, Liberia, and Malawi) comprised of a U.S. university, an Indian agricultural institution, and an African university. It is envisioned that U.S. university administrators and faculty members will travel to India and Africa for short-term activities.

Interested parties are not requested to submit a complete proposal at this time, but rather submit a letter of interest in the project. USDA will make individual awards to three or four parties to execute activities under this program. USDA will look favorably on expressions of interest from minority-serving institutions.

Criteria for Selection

Applicants must demonstrate the following:

1. Understanding of institutional weaknesses and challenges for African university programs to contribute effectively and sustainably to national development objectives.
2. Ability to design programs that effectively address and mitigate weaknesses and exploit opportunities for African agricultural education institutions to support national development objectives.
3. Established relationship with an agricultural university in Kenya, Liberia, or Malawi, preferably one of the three listed above.
4. Established experience with Indian agricultural institutions in the design and implementation of agricultural capacity building programs.

More Information and Submission

Interested applicants should send a letter of interest, no longer than five (5) pages to Susan Waage and Jonathan Hamrell, Office of Capacity Building and Development, Foreign Agricultural Service, USDA. For questions, please email: susan.waage@fas.usda.gov or jonathan.hamrell@fas.usda.gov. The letter of interest should be received by November 11, 2011.