Sources of potential funding in agriculture – which doors to knock?

In a post- crisis world, innovation in rural development can be the single most important driver of the growth and competitiveness of agricultural sector. Today, there is much more reliance on the agricultural market than in the past decades. Issues of what to do to reduce poverty, increase profit from agricultural production, employment and widen consumers` choice are still to be answered.

To deal with these issues, development agencies design projects that increasingly turned to grants in providing solutions. In agriculture grants are mostly used for research, technology, dissemination, export promotion, innovation, community development, business startup, project feasibility, assessment, training, market development, business linkage promotion, and capital.

A good understanding of youth is paramount importance for further projects developments through grants and loans provided by donor organizations and institutions which one of their focus areas are agricultural sector development.

First of all, we define Institutional funding as the process of creating partnership and applying for funding from donor for the development of project or program. There are different types of institutional donors:

Bilateral donors

Multi-lateral donors and international organizations

These are funding organizations financed by several governments. For example, Food and Agriculture Organization for the United Nations; Asian Development Bank; World Bank; Global Ecological Fund; United Nations Development Programme;  Islamic Development Bank; Saudi Fund for Development; Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development;  State Secretariat for Economic Affairs SECO; Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH; IFAD ( International Fund for agricultural development), World Food Programme (WFP), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Based on the Declaration on improving efficiency of the funding by foreign government  approved in Paris in 28 February- 2 March 2005,  any funding and grants should consider national priorities and country programs, coincide the national legislation, consistency with national strategies, systems and procedures, and mutual accountability. 

Philanthropic foundations

"Pilanthropic foundations" can be applied to various foundations, including private and government initiated foundations, corporate foundations. The foundation mainly comes with the trust, charitable purpose and possibility of providing grants to non-for profit organizations. Foundations are topic driven rather than project – driven, but they use project cycle management tools for their funding decisions.

Developing world receive a larger share of total giving from foundations, and supported charitable causes for many years. Some of these philanthropic foundations also provide grants in agriculture:

• Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the foundation’s international grants are concentrated on environmental conservation and scientific research.
   
• Rockefeller Foundation, Today, the organization’s focus areas are international in scope: basic survival safeguards, global health, climate and environment, urbanization, and social and economic security. With the creation of the Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network, funding for environment-related projects is expected to rise - particularly those focused on mitigating the effects of climate change. 
   
• William and Flora Hewlett Foundation funds global development programs on governance, education, improved policy analysis and better access to agricultural markets for farmers in developing countries.

A better knowledge of youth in elements of fundraising and funding instruments will be an asset to initiate and maintain partnership, learn requirements of the donor organizations in preparing project proposals, and introduce innovation in agricultural sector.