About the Organization

IDEAL is a five-year USAID FFP funded activity that aims to address knowledge and capacity gaps expressed by the food and nutrition security implementing community. The goal of IDEAL is to strengthen food and nutrition security among FFP-target populations through promotion of systems-level approaches to improve the design, implementation and overall effectiveness of emergency and development food and nutrition security activities.

About the Grant

The purpose of this request for applications (RFA) is to solicit applications that support the development of tools and topic-specific learning events to strengthen the capacity of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) Office of Food for Peace (FFP) grantees, and the broader food and nutrition security implementing partner community.

Subject of Grant

Capacity strengthening and innovation to improve the design, implementation and effectiveness of emergency and development food and nutrition security activities.

Objective of Grant

To solicit applications from food and nutrition security practitioners to support the development of products and tools, conduct events, and implement practical activities to improve the quality of food and nutrition security programming among FFP-target populations. Successful Micro Grant applications will align with IDEAL’s content focus areas, the FFP Learning Agenda and identified gaps and needs expressed by implementing partners. This RFA is not intended to solicit applications for research work done by Development Food Security Activities (DFSAs) during the Refine and Implement (R&I) period.

Focus and Subject Areas

Over the past decade, FFP made significant investments in strengthening implementer capacity in a number of key technical areas central to food and nutrition security (e.g. Agriculture, WASH, Commodity Management, Nutrition Technology). Under IDEAL, the emphasis will shift to underlying content focus areas that have received less attention in recent years but remain central to protecting and enhancing lives and livelihoods while transforming communities and institutions. These focus areas represents areas of current practice for implementing partners working in food and nutrition security and offer clear opportunities for capacity strengthening and enhanced sharing across partners on best and promising practices.

Content focus areas

• Strengthening the quality and impact of emergency programming
• Data collection and analysis for improved program design and impact
• Adaptive management and application of learning
• Integrated activity design and implementation
• Sustainability and planning for exit
• Social and behaviour change
• Equity, empowerment, social cohesion and social accountability

Duration of Micro Grant Award

The duration of an award under this RFA may be up to 12 months from the date of the award. IDEAL, Save the Children Federation, and/or USAID reserves the right to cancel this RFA at any time.

Funding Availability

Final funding levels for each award will depend on content, relevance, quality, number of applications received, needs, and competing priorities, with a ceiling of $50,000 US Dollars, subject to availability of funds. Acceptance of an application under this RFA does not constitute an award, nor does it guarantee that the application, if awarded, will be funded at the full dollar amount requested

Applicant Eligibility

Prime applicants may be U.S. and non-U.S. nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), for-profit organizations, or institutions of higher education that can contribute to IDEAL’s strategic objective of promoting systems-level approaches to improving the design, implementation and  SC-IDEAL-MG-RFA-2019-01 6 overall effectiveness of emergency and development food and nutrition security activities.

Submissions are due by 5PM ET on August 30, 2019 for Round 1 or 5 PM ET November 1, 2019 for Round 2.