Nigeria is confronted with a food security crisis that is made worse by the global pandemic and its debilitating after-effects on the food value chain in the country. These have collapsed the already weak value chains across the country, including people’s ability to produce, process, and distribute food.
Aside from the disruption to agricultural productivity and markets, the pandemic has left a negative impact on livelihoods, where millions of people are live in hunger and malnutrition.
As part of the Feed the Future scheme, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) launched the USAID/Nigeria COVID-19 Food Security Challenge.
About the challenge
The USAID/Nigeria COVID-19 Food Security Challenge seeks to collaborate with commercially viable youth-led companies and mid-stage companies that are already working in food production, processing, and/or distribution.
Selected partners will help farmers and other stakeholders in the food value chain to increase agricultural productivity and food security within the next year to mitigate the effect of COVID-19 on Nigeria’s food value chain.
Through this challenge, USAID will offer a total of $3 million in funding and technical assistance to youth-led and mid-stage companies in Nigeria. Applications are also invited from micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that have not previously worked with USAID.
Click here to apply for the USAID/Nigeria COVID-19 Food Security Challenge 2021.
Benefits
The USAID/Nigeria COVID-19 Food Security Challenge anticipates funding 15 to 25 youth-led companies with up to $75,000 each and awarding 10 to15 mid-stage companies up to $150,000 each.
The winners will also receive technical assistance to rapidly expand their food production or food security activities to reduce the effect of COVID-19 on Nigeria’s food value chain as well as improve the resilience of vulnerable households to the negative impacts of the pandemic.
Requirements
Applicants must meet the following criteria to qualify:
- Be a registered for-profit company that is based in Nigeria
- Have a sustainable and financially viable business model for their innovation in the Nigerian food security value chain.
- Mid-stage applicants must have existing services or products in the Nigerian food security value chain with a minimum of 1,000 existing customers.
- Youth-led applicants must have a founder under the age of 29 with a pre-revenue or post-revenue business model innovation in the Nigerian food security value chain
- Youth-led applicants are expected to have a working prototype or minimum viable product along with a demonstrated Base of Pyramid (BoP) market segment being targeted.
Deadline
The application window closes on Friday, May 9, 2021, at 5:00 PM WAT. For more information about the Challenge, click here or send an email to [email protected].
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