On Monday, the IDB said that the deadline for receiving proposals for the initiative being undertaken in collaboration with the Spanish General Trust Fund is May 15.

Agriculture has been highlighted by the IDB as one of the main areas for which assistance would be provided. They said that proposals should be for activities that fund specific interventions aimed at improving financial risk management in the agricultural sector in order to reduce price volatility, improve productive capacities and fiscal stability.

“These may include activities related to derivative market development, portfolio insurance, credit scoring techniques for rural and public banks, agricultural value chain financing schemes among others,” it said noting that at least Euro 100,000 (US$131, 237) would be provided for “activity grants” for implementation of activities that include impact evaluation methods and generate lessons learned.

The IDB said that research grants of Euro 20,000 (US$26, 250) would go towards diagnostics, impact evaluations, comparative studies or case studies, and other applied research leading to policy recommendations.

“Projects will be evaluated on innovativeness, ability to generate and empirically document impact, and overall quality of the proposal. The IDB will publish the results of the MAP grants as part of its research publications. Ideally, activities and research grants will be implemented in less than one year,” it said.