Call for Proposals; Capacity Development Research Grants at REPOA, Tanzania

Call for Proposals; Capacity Development Research Grants

REPOA is pleased to announce a call for proposals for the year 2014

REPOA research grants aim to develop a vibrant community of beginning and intermediate researchers capable of undertaking research that is credible and relevant to development challenges, with special attention to policy development issues that stakeholders can find useful in socioeconomic transformation for inclusive growth and poverty reduction initiatives. Support is provided to short term studies (up to one year) in areas that are relevant to REPOA’s overall research agenda.

Focus Fields:

Research proposals are invited on any one of the following themes relating to socioeconomic transformation for growth and poverty reduction within REPOA’s broad research agenda:

1. Growth and Development
The key areas envisaged under this theme are four fold:
i) Structural change and dynamics of growth, focusing on understanding the dynamics of new patterns of economic structure, new sources of dynamism, potential drivers of productivity and competitiveness, and how these relate to income poverty reduction.

ii) Agricultural and rural transformation, seeking to explore what agricultural and rural transformation is feasible and appropriate under the existing circumstances in Tanzania.

iii) Natural resource and economic development, seeking to address the challenges of harnessing the resources to realize socioeconomic transformation.

iv) Employment and labour market, seeking to understand the linkages and constraints between growth, employment and poverty reduction, both in the formal and in the informal sectors.

2. Social Protection
Two key areas of focus under this theme:
i) Looking at processes which cause informality become more attractive and formal sector less attractive, thus turning the informal sector into an instrument for preserving and creating poor- quality job firms and micro enterprises, with adverse consequences on productivity growth and socioeconomic security.

ii) Looking at differentiated access to quality education in terms of social exclusion from education and/or skill acquisition.

3. Governance
Two key areas of focus under this theme:
i) Local Government (LG) reforms and ease of doing business: examination of changes in ease of doing business at the sub-national levels and how the LG reforms have/ are contributing to improvement of doing business conditions. Others may examine the extent to which design of LG reforms have included business environment issues as a key component for fostering development.

ii) CSO participation in the Audit Process: study will attempt to fill the gap of documented evidence about CSO engagement and contribution in the Audit Process by mapping out and documenting CSO engagement in the Audit Process in Tanzania (where they are; what they do in relation to oversight of public resources; how they use the audit findings, and contribute to the audit process, how and with whom they engage on public such issues etc.)

Gender, Technology and Environment are cross-cutting issues in all three themes above.

Eligibility:

• Grants are open to young and intermediate researchers based at institutions in Tanzania that can demonstrate how the grant will add value to what they are already doing.

• Applicants should have obtained a Research Degree (Master’s based on research, M.Phil) or PhD with not more than two years of post-PhD experience.

• Applicants are expected to hold demonstrable writing skills and expertise relevant to the research theme.

Guidelines:

Proposals should include a short background and problem statement, research questions, literature review, extensive indication of methodology, budget and timeline as indicated in the research proposal format.

Proposals that contain clear methodological designs are highly preferred.

REPOA also encourages researchers to use secondary data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and surveys done by REPOA. Brief descriptions and questionnairesundertaken by REPOA. Data from the studies will be available upon official request.

Together with the proposal, short CVs of two (2) pages maximum of both team of researchers in the study are required, indicating professional affiliations, relevant expertise, and publications and post degree certificates.

Process:
After submission of proposals, the review committee will review all proposals to identify successful candidates.

A kick-off workshop will be held in due course for all shortlisted researchers to enable discussion on the research proposals between applicants and REPOA.

Important:
Applicants are strongly encouraged to read the background information on the research themes and the proposal writing guidelines attached below.

Application deadline and submission requirement
The call for research proposals is open throughout the year.

Completed research proposals should be submitted as e-mail attachments to REPOA atrepoa@repoa.or.tz

Inquiries
For further inquiries please contact: Linda Madete through linda@repoa.or.tz or use the contact information provided below:Attachment: