l'Agence française de développement (AFD), together with Expertise France and The GovLab, is soliciting innovative proposals (re)using data in a collaborative and responsible way to provide actionable intelligence for decision-makers and people to respond to COVID-19 and future pandemic challenges across Africa.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a human tragedy, impacting people around the world. The social and economic costs are huge, and they are contributing to a global slowdown affecting every country and community. The African continent, like much of the world, has been badly affected.

Besides contributing to the loss of over 50,00 people, the pandemic is expected to:

• Result in a fall of about 1.4% in GDP in Africa
• Move Sub-Saharan Africa into a recession in 2020 for the first time in 15 years, costing the region between $37 billion and $79 billion in output losses according to the World Bank.
• Expose an additional 9.1% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa to extreme poverty, according to the International Growth Centre.
• Threaten nearly 20 million jobs in Africa, both in formal and informal sectors.
• Leave over 250 million children out of school across Africa.
• Render 3.6 percent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa, including 3.9 million children under the age of 5, severely food deprived.
• Contribute to a US $3.7 billion decline in public and private health expenditures by the end of 2020.

AFD is looking for

AFD, together with Expertise France and The GovLab, is seeking ideas and proposals that (re)use data to provide actionable insight on COVID-19 along the following domains:

• Public Health
  • Tracking Disease Spread
  • Developing Disease Treatment
  • Identifying the Availability of Supplies
  • Monitoring Adherence to Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions
• Economic
  • Supporting Post-Pandemic Re-openings and Recovery
  • Alleviating Pandemic-related Unemployment and Poverty
  • Guaranteeing Protections for Workers
  • Supporting Education and Upskilling
  • Fostering Business and Government Solvency
• Socio-Political
  • Understanding Public Perceptions and Behavior
  • Protecting Human Rights and Promoting Accountability
  • Addressing Misinformation

Across these domains they are looking for innovative projects and data collaboratives that provide one or more of the following types of insight:

• Situational Awareness
  • Initiatives that leverage data to enable stakeholders across sectors to better understand COVID-19 trends and geographic distribution.
• Cause-and-Effect Insight
  • Initiatives that can help stakeholders better understand the key drivers and consequences of COVID-19. They aim to establish which variables make a difference for a problem and whether further issues might be caused.
• Prediction
  • Initiatives that leverage data to enable new predictive capabilities and allow stakeholders to assess future risks, needs, and opportunities.
• Impact Assessment
  • Initiatives that determine which, whether, and how various interventions meet certain objectives, including the Sustainable Development Goals. They can also seek to understand impediments to certain objectives or the success of particular interventions.

Award Information

The call offers recipients a contribution between €50-100K in funding. They expect between 7 -10 projects will receive awards.

Geographical Focus

AFD seeks project targeting beneficiaries within and across Africa. In particular, they encourage actors operating in Francophone Africa to apply.

Eligibility Criteria

• Applicants must submit their application in English or French.
• To be eligible for a grant, the applicant must:
  • Be a legal person (legal entity) or a grouping of such persons (consortium) within the limit of 3 legal persons per grouping;
  • The lead partner of the consortium must be established in one of the African Union countries;
  • International organisations and trust funds are excluded;
  • Have a bank account in the name of the entity;
  • Each member of the consortium must be registered within the Trade and Companies Registry of its country;
  • Be directly responsible for the preparation and implementation of the action and not act as an intermediary. Subcontracting is not allowed;
  • The lead partner's average cumulative annual turnover over the last two years for which the accounts have been closed must be at least three times the grant application;
  • The general liquidity ratios (current assets/current liabilities) for the last two financial years closed must be at least 1 (one). In the case of a consortium, this criterion must be met by each of its members.

For more information, visit AFD.