The CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions and Markets (PIM), supported by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Cornell University are calling for concept proposals for the Structural Transformation of African Agriculture and Rural Spaces (STAARS) fellowship program. The STAARS project is a collaboration with Cornell University, the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Economic Research Consortium (AERC), the Partnership for Economic Policy (PEP), and the World Bank. PIM has established a collaboration agreement with Cornell University to provide technical mentorship and support for selected early-career African researchers. The STAARS Fellowship began in 2016 and to date has supported eight fellows from diverse backgrounds.
The STAARS project, as conceptualized and developed by the initial institutional members of the consortium, builds on the World Bank “Myths and Facts in African Agriculture” project to pursue in-depth, rigorous, policy-oriented research on the causal determinants of productivity and income growth, asset accumulation, rural employment and risk management in African agriculture and rural spaces. Cornell University is the technical lead and global center of excellence in building and strengthening the initiative in collaboration with PIM. Other invited collaborators also continue to contribute to the development of the full initiative with funding support from AfDB and other sources.
PIM provides competitive grants for travel and training for bright, early career African researchers, in collaboration with Cornell University and other partners. STAARS fellows will be selected through this competitive call for proposals. Once selected, STAARS fellows will be paired with mentors at Cornell University with whom they will jointly author a paper on a topic of mutual interest relating to structural transformation in sub-Saharan Africa. PIM will support the publication of resulting research findings in high quality journals and as working papers. In addition, PIM will facilitate fellows’ participation in scientific and policy conferences. Full details on the call for proposals, due March 15 2017, are available here.
