1. Rice, Maize, and Chickpea IPM for East Africa
Release date: June 12, 2015
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management at Virginia Tech, funded by USAID, invites the submission of concept notes from U.S. universities, CGIAR institutions, other International Agricultural Research Institutions, and host country institutions to compete to lead the Rice, Maize, and Chickpea IPM for East Africa project. Concept notes will be reviewed and may lead to an invitation to submit a full proposal.
U.S. universities as defined under Section 296(d) of Title XII of the Foreign Assistance Act, CGIAR, AIRCA, and host country institutions are eligible to apply as the lead institution for a period of 4 years. Total funding (single award) is $1.55 million. Collaboration or partnerships with relevant and appropriate host country organizations, other universities, the IARCs, and/or development community partners is encouraged.
Concept notes for Rice, Maize, and Chickpea IPM for East Africa are due July 10, 2015.
Q&A
1. Would you consider a proposal for one specific country and/or one specific crop — for example rice in Ethiopia?
A. The RFA is for all the three countries, so we would suggest that each concept note cover all three countries and all three crops.
If your concept note covers only one or two countries or crops, we will consider merging concept notes received from different applicants so that we end up with one proposal covering three countries and three crops. However this method is not preferred.
2. Vegetable Crops IPM for East Africa
Release date: June 2, 2015
The Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Integrated Pest Management at Virginia Tech, funded by USAID, invites the submission of concept notes from U.S. universities, CGIAR institutions, other International Agricultural Research Institutions, and host country institutions to compete to lead the Vegetable Crops IPM for East Africa. Concept notes will be reviewed and may lead to an invitation to submit a full proposal.
U.S. universities as defined under Section 296(d) of Title XII of the Foreign Assistance Act, CGIAR, AIRCA, and host country institutions are eligible to apply as the lead institution for a period of 4.25 years. Total funding (single award) is $1.55 million. Collaboration or partnerships with relevant and appropriate host country organizations, other universities, the IARCs, and/or development community partners is encouraged.
Concept notes for Vegetable Crops IPM for East Africa are due July 3, 2015.
View Older Requests for Concept Notes
General Questions and Answers
1. Can staff salaries be included in the budget?
A. Staff salaries and wages are allowable direct costs to the project. What is budgeted should be in accordance to the anticipated Level of Effort any individual will be spending on the project. For example, if a staff person has an annual base salary of $20,000, and you anticipate they will be spending 20% of their time on the project, then $4000 could be budgeted annually.
Please reference 2 CFR §200.430 ‘Compensation—personal services’ for further details
2. How should overhead/indirect costs be calculated into the budget?
A. An entity can claim indirect if 1) they have a negotiated indirect cost rate agreement (NICRA), signed by the cognizant U.S. Government Audit or 2) they have an indirect rate developed by a certified accounting firm based on cost analysis of their organization. Indirect/overhead costs should be incorporated into the budget accordingly based on the respective entity’s negotiated indirect rate and policies. The entity should be ready to submit documentation supporting the rate budgeted.
In the absence of a negotiated rate agreement, any non-federal entity may elect to charge a de minimis rate of 10% of modified total direct costs (MTDC). No justification, documentation, or analysis of actual costs is required of the entity to use this rate. PLEASE NOTE this OMB guidance was very recently adopted by USAID and was not incorporated into the Virginia Tech prime award. Modification to the prime was requested by VT and received a positive response from USAID. We encourage applicants to move forward with this new regulation for budgeting purposes. However, in the event a modification is not extended from USAID officially incorporating this regulation, adjustments will have to be made to budgets prior to the issuance of subaward agreements.
Please reference 2 CFR 200.414 ‘Indirect (F&A) costs’ for further details.
3. What is the policy regarding per diem?
A. Per diem may be budgeted for employees and other project collaborators for travel. The amount paid must follow the respective entity’s written travel policy and must not exceed the U.S. State Department International per diem rates for the area being traveled to. Many times the destination will fall under the ‘Other’ category for the country traveled to. Please see this website for the allowable U.S. State Department’s international per diem rates: http://aoprals.state.gov/web920/per_diem.asp
Please reference 2 CFR §200.474 ‘Travel Costs’ for more details.
4. Can a potential partner join with more than one lead agency in preparing the concept note?
A. Yes
The Virginia Tech IPM Innovation Lab is funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development under cooperative agreement AID-OOA-L-15-00001.
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