The Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, or GAFSP for short, is a special kind of funding platform that helps countries improve their agriculture and food systems. It's designed to work with countries over the long term, rather than just providing emergency help. GAFSP provides grants to countries that are committed to making changes; it gets different organizations working together; it focuses on making a lasting impact, and it makes sure that the work it funds is aligned with what each country really needs.
This approach helps countries develop their own solutions to food security problems, rather than just relying on outside help. GAFSP focus on helping countries build stronger, more sustainable food systems, and it does this by providing funding and support that's tailored to each country's specific needs.
GAFSP is part of a big group that fights hunger and poverty worldwide, and it works closely with other important organizations like the UN Food Systems Summit and the Committee on World Food Security, which makes it a key player in the global effort to make sure everyone has enough food.
The Scale of the Program
The total amount of money that GAFSP is working with is $2.46 billion. This is divided into two parts: $1.88 billion that is given as grants, and $576 million that is used to help private businesses. The grant money has already helped 24.8 million people in 51 different countries. To understand how the program works, let's look at the 8th Call for Producer Organization-led Proposals. In March 2026, 16 organizations that represent producers were given a total of $38 million. This shows that the program is very competitive and gives out a significant amount of money.
For this particular Ninth Call, which is part of the Country-Led track, there's a total of around $163 million in grant resources up for grabs. Out of all the eligible countries, they're expecting to fund somewhere between 6 to 10 projects. What's really important to note here is the ratio of eligible countries to the number of projects that will actually get funded.
We're talking about 58 countries all competing for a relatively small number of awards - likely somewhere between 5 and 15. This means the selection process is extremely competitive, and it's not designed to fund every single applicant. In fact, they're looking for the best of the best, and only a handful of projects will make the cut.
Vision 2030: The Strategic Frame Behind This Call
GAFSP frames its Ninth Call around three reinforcing strategic roles it wants funded projects to embody:
- Incentive Setter: driving innovative, integrated approaches to transforming entire agrifood systems, not just isolated interventions.
- Connector: linking smallholder farmers to value chains, bridging public and private financing, and improving coordination between actors who don't typically work together.
- De-Risker: unlocking additional investment in high-impact, scalable solutions specifically for underserved communities, essentially using GAFSP grant money to make a project attractive enough that other investors follow.
- Understanding these three roles matters directly for proposal design, since GAFSP's scoring criteria (covered below) reward proposals that visibly demonstrate these functions, not just describe agricultural activities in isolation.
Eligible Activities: What GAFSP Will Actually Fund
Every proposal must address outcomes across two categories.
- Food System Outcomes (proposals should address these directly):
- Increased agricultural productivity
- Improved farm-to-market linkages
- Reduced risk and vulnerability
- Improved rural livelihoods and entrepreneurship
- Improved institutions
- To be considered, proposals must cover at least two of the three crosscutting outcomes listed below - this is a mandatory requirement, not something that can be skipped. The three outcomes are:
- Improved climate resilience
- Empowered women and girls
- Improved nutrition
- It's really important to note that the "2 of 3" rule has a big impact on how things are scored, which is why it's worth highlighting. If a proposal only covers one of the crosscutting themes, no matter how well it does, it will still lose points that it can't make up for in other areas.
Eligible Countries: Sierra Leone Is Confirmed Eligible
GAFSP's Ninth Call includes 58 countries that are part of IDA, which is spread across six main areas: Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and South Asia.
Sierra Leone is clearly named as one of the eligible countries in Africa, and it's not alone - there are many others on the list too. You've got Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, DR Congo, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, São Tomé & Príncipe, Senegal, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia all included as well.
Here's something to consider from the original information: some countries on GAFSP's list are in bold, which means they've never gotten a country-led grant before. There are 15 countries like this, and they're eligible for the first time.
Proposals have to come from the country itself and be sent in together with a supervising group that is approved by GAFSP. A government ministry can't send one in on its own.
Scoring Criteria: The Full 120-Point Breakdown
GAFSP's process gets really specific about this, so it's a good idea to understand it thoroughly because it determines what a strong proposal should focus on.
Category I: Country Readiness and Needs (20 points total)
- Country Readiness (15 points) assesses:
- Alignment with national agriculture and food security strategies
- A clear case for why this project represents the best use of GAFSP grant funding specifically
- Evidence of inter-ministerial and multi-stakeholder coordination
- For countries part of the CAADP, it's also important to line up with what was agreed on in the Kampala Declaration and what came out of the 4th Biennial Review.
- Country Needs (5 points) works as a bonus structure:
- You get extra points if a country is considered fragile and has conflict issues, as listed in Annex 1, and that's worth 3 points.
- If a country is getting a GAFSP country-led grant for the first time, they will get 2 extra points.
The biggest part of the evaluation is Category II, which looks at the quality of the proposal and how ready it is to be implemented, and it's worth a total of 75 points.
Technical Quality (35 points) evaluates:
- Problem analysis aligned clearly with stated objectives
- A full project description covering components and activities
- The required crosscutting themes must be covered, with at least two out of three areas being addressed, as previously mentioned.
- Realistic phasing within the proposed timeframe
- There's a strong foundation of evidence supporting the intervention and the way it's targeted.
- A credible post-project sustainability plan
Theory of Change and Results (10 points) evaluates:
A complete Theory of Change and Results Framework
Clearly identified risks to achieving results, paired with costed mitigation measures (not just acknowledged risks, but budgeted responses to them)
Indicators that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound, should have clear responsibilities assigned for monitoring and specific data sources identified.
Alignment with GAFSP's own 2022 Monitoring & Evaluation Plan
Detailed Budget (10 points) requires:
- Full disaggregation by component and activity
- We need to break down the financing into two parts: money from GAFSP and money from other sources.
- Unit costs, quantities, and totals shown transparently
- Well-justified cost estimates, not rounded guesses
- Submission using GAFSP's separate Excel budget template, which requires two specific tables
- Implementation Readiness (20 points) evaluates:
- Sound institutional arrangements and clearly defined roles
- A proven history of success is needed from the groups doing the work, preferably with reviews of similar projects they've done in the past. This will help show they can handle a project of this size.
- We've found some gaps in our capacity and we're working on ways to fix them. This includes building our capacity over the long term where it's needed.
- Evidence that a genuine stakeholder consultation process actually took place
Category III: Special Aspects (25 points total)
Innovative and Integrated Solutions (10 points), split into:
- Innovation (up to 5 points): context-specific, proven innovations, whether technological, financial, institutional, or policy-based
- Integration (up to 5 points): how well the proposal connects GAFSP's crosscutting themes (climate, gender, nutrition) with other relevant themes like biodiversity, water, or soil, and a clear explanation of why that integration actually helps achieve the project's objectives
- Co-financing and Collaboration (7 points), with a critical hard rule: proposals without any co-financing are automatically ineligible. Indicative (non-binding) co-financing commitments don't count toward scoring, only secured or credibly committed financing does.
Within this category:
- Cash and in-kind contributions are treated equally
- You get extra points if the money for a project comes from outside the usual aid budget.
- You get extra points if you pay half or more of the costs when you ask GAFSP for money.
- This rule is really important, probably the most important one. If your proposal is great in every other way, but you don't have a good plan for co-financing, it won't be considered, no matter how good it is otherwise.
Private Sector Engagement (8 points) evaluates:
- The quality of market opportunity identification within the proposal
- Where the private sector engagement falls on a spectrum from nascent/informal to structured/commercial
- Clarity about what specific roles private actors will play
- Whether the proposal creates a genuine enabling environment for investment that continues after the project itself ends
Required Documents (Full List, per Annex 2)
Every proposal must include:
- Completed Proposal using GAFSP's official template, submitted in English or French
- Budget Spreadsheet with two required tables using GAFSP's standard template
- A country's National Strategy or Investment Plan is a must-have document that has been approved, not just a draft. It should focus on agriculture or food security. If there are other relevant strategies, like nutrition, water, or land management, they should be included as well.
- A letter from the government is needed, signed by the Ministry of Finance and the ministry in charge of the project. This letter must confirm that the project is a top priority for the country and that the government is committed to providing its share of the funding.
- The Sector Working Group gives its approval, confirming that the plan supports existing projects. If there isn't a formal system for donors to work together, this means getting all the local GAFSP Supervising Entities to meet and discuss it.
- The Supervising Entity needs to provide a letter that confirms they are willing to take on this role. This letter also needs to state that they have completed quality assurance checks.
- Proof of co-financing can be shown in two ways: either through signed agreements that confirm secured financing, or through letters of intent or memoranda of understanding that outline expected financing.
- Associated Project Documents, for any complementary ongoing or pipeline projects (optional specifically for pipeline projects)
Application Process: Six Steps
- Prepare the Proposal: must be country-led, using GAFSP's official Proposal Template, with strictly one proposal per country
- To get support, you need to pick an organization to oversee your project. You can choose from a few big groups like the African Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, IFAD, the Inter-American Development Bank, or the World Bank. They can help with investing and providing technical expertise. If you want, you can also get a second group involved, like the FAO or WFP, but only for technical help.
- Get feedback from all parties involved: this means really listening to smallholders, farmer groups, private companies, non-profit organizations, and donors. We talk to them to get their thoughts and ideas, and this information is used to determine how ready we are to put our plans into action, which is measured by the Implementation Readiness score.
- Secure Endorsements: the joint government letter (Finance Ministry plus line ministry) and the Sector Working Group endorsement
- Put together all the documents: gather everything on the submission checklist (which is summarized in Annex 2).
- You need to send your complete package to gafsp-info@gafspfund.org by September 15, 2026. The deadline is 11:59 PM in Washington D.C., which is GMT-5. Make sure to get everything in on time.
Selection Process and Timeline
The proposals will be reviewed by an Independent Technical Advisory Committee, which will check each one against the scoring criteria. After that, the GAFSP Steering Committee will make the final decisions on funding, and we expect that to happen around January 2027. When it's all done, the proposals will fall into one of three categories: they'll either be Approved, Conditionally Approved, or Not Approved.
Key Contacts
- General questions: gafsp-info@gafspfund.org
- For more details on call information, guidelines, and templates, you can visit www.gafspfund.org - their FAQ page is updated regularly.
- For questions or concerns about the World Bank's GAFSP, you can reach out to Aimee Marie Ange Mpambara at ampmbara@worldbank.org, Funda Canli at fcanli@worldbank.org, or send a message to the general GAFSP WB SE inbox at GAFSP_WB_SE@worldbankgroup.org.
- The main contact person at the African Development Bank is Philip Boahen, and his email address is p.boahen@afdb.org. He is listed as the Primary Point of Contact.
- IFAD focal points are Enika Basu, who can be reached at e.basu@ifad.org, and Mattia Barina, at m.barina@ifad.org.
- FAO focal points are Benoist Veillerette, who can be reached at benoist.veillerette@fao.org, and is the primary point of contact, and Patrizia Labella, at patrizia.labella@fao.org.
- WFP focal point: Anna Law (anna.law@wfp.org)
GAFSP's Own Key Takeaways
- Start early, engage your chosen Supervising Entity and stakeholders now, not close to the deadline
- Make sure you get all the necessary papers and documents ready ahead of time, as listed in Annex 2.
- You have to provide proof that you can co-finance your project when you submit your proposal. If you don't, it will be rejected right away. This is not something you can add later, it's a must from the start.
- Design the proposal to explicitly address at least 2 of the 3 crosscutting priorities from the outset, not retrofitted later
- GAFSP explicitly warns that lengthy or generic descriptions included purely for the sake of completeness will not earn additional credit, succinct, concrete responses are what score well
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