Deadline Date: July 23, 2026
The Call for Applications: Adapted Crops for Resilience and Green Jobs seeks to catalyse green jobs for youth and improve nutrition by scaling climate-resilient African-adapted crops and integrated value chain solutions across selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The programme focuses on developing and strengthening long-term strategies to scale the consumption and marketing of adapted crops, reducing the yield gap through climate-smart crop varieties and agronomic practices, mobilising the private sector to stimulate demand and strengthen market linkages, supporting value addition, creating green job opportunities for young people across adapted crop value chains, strengthening public-private partnerships, institutional arrangements and policy instruments, promoting climate-resilient agriculture, improving seed systems, supporting integrated soil fertility management and conservation agriculture, encouraging rainwater management, expanding climate information and advisory services, strengthening market systems, supporting youth employment and enterprise development, and developing integrated business models that combine inputs, advisory services, finance and market access.
The initiative is designed to strengthen resilient agricultural systems while creating employment opportunities for young people through sustainable value chains built around climate-resilient African-adapted crops. It promotes innovative and integrated approaches that improve agricultural productivity, market access, nutrition, and enterprise development.
The programme will be implemented in selected Sub-Saharan African countries, including but not limited to Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Burkina Faso. Priority value chains may include sorghum, millet, cowpea, groundnuts, pigeon pea, cassava, sweet potato, teff, fonio, and other locally relevant climate-adapted crops.
The programme supports a wide range of interventions, including strengthening seed systems for climate-resilient crop varieties, promoting integrated soil fertility management and conservation agriculture, supporting rainwater harvesting and efficient water use, expanding digital climate information and advisory services, strengthening aggregation hubs and market linkages, promoting value addition and quality standards, connecting producers with institutional and commercial markets, supporting youth-led enterprises across adapted crop value chains, and developing integrated service delivery models that combine agricultural inputs, advisory services, finance, and market access.
Particular emphasis is placed on creating green jobs for young people by supporting entrepreneurship in input supply, mechanisation, climate advisory services, produce aggregation, food processing, packaging, digital commerce, and last-mile distribution. The programme also encourages targeted support for young women through incubation, mentorship, business development services, start-up finance, affordable technologies, and market-oriented enterprise models.
The maximum grant period is 23 months, running from 1 August 2026 to 30 June 2028. Each grant concept application should be contextualised according to the solutions proposed by the applicant.
Eligible applicants include non-governmental organisations, research institutions, youth organisations and youth-led enterprises, digital service providers and agritech companies, private sector entities, farmer organisations and cooperatives, financial institutions and enterprise support organisations, as well as consortia of multiple organisations with complementary expertise in agricultural development, value chain strengthening, research, digital innovation, youth employment, market systems, and private sector engagement.
For more information, visit AGRA.
