Topic	CPs Total	CPs To proceed
Cereals	12	3
Animals	11	3
Legumes	11	2
Roots and tubers	7	1
Indigenous fruits	6	1
Cropping systems	4
Vegetables	4
Fruit crops	3
IP&DM	3	2
Natural resources	3	2
Medicinal plants	2
Oil and industrial crops	2
Agro-forestry species	1
Biotechnology	1
Animal diseases	1	1
Seeds	1
	72	15

Animal production a second-tier priority made an strong showing.  The presence of so many proposals in this area is perhaps a function not only of strong capacity in the country of animal scientists (long-standing Faculty of Veterinary Science at Eduardo Mondlane Univeristy) but also a generalized feeling that in specific provinces such as Maputo and Gaza cattle production makes the best use of the low rainfall grasslands; that provinces such as Tete goat production is an important income generator for small scale family agriculture and finally all over Mozambique chickens represent both a protein source as well as the only source of quick cash.

A very interesting result was the strong showing of Natural Resources Management issues in terms of indigenous fruit, agro-forestry, natural resources and medicinal plants which were either the main focus or a part of some broader concept.  Together they were included in 15 concept papers.  Three of the papers with NRM were invited to produce full proposals.  Important to see that although the Priority setting document strongly favoured crop production that researchers were able to show the links between wild resources and poverty alleviation.  Some of these papers, particularly the medicinal plant research, were truly outside Compete’s mandate but I think the result shows that NRM workers need simply to establish how their work address the key impact Compete is looking for:  poverty alleviation, income generation and food security.

The following graphs show how selection of concept papers changed the relative balance between the research areas.  Crop production researchers selected to produce full proposals declined from 62% to 46%.

Figure 2
Percentage of Concept Paper Topics versus Percentage of Selected Topics

Budget Analysis
The only indication given by Compete as to budget was an upper limit of US $300,000. The graph below has the budgets of the selected group superimposed on the budgets of all the 43.  Very distinctive is that the large group with budgets above $250,000.  Budgets were not used to rank the concept papers but as it turned out none of this high budget group scored well technically.  Equally interesting were the group under $125,000.  These were usually tight, highly focused proposals.

Figure 3

 

Table 4
Concept Budget Distribution by Intervals of US$25,000.

 

Institutional Diversity, Partners, Mentors
An important goal of Compete is to reach both private sector, NGO and government agrarian researchers throughout the country.  Figure 4 captures the information about the lead researchers graphically and Table 4 gives the actual figures. 

Figure 4
Concept Paper Writer Research Institutions

Table 5
Distribution of Concept Paper Writers between Institutions

Another goal of Compete was to work towards improving the research capacity of the Zonal Centers which are a part of the IIAM.   And Figure 5 gives the breakdown for the different sections of IIAM. The CZ submitted 18 of 28 proposals received from IIAM.  Nordeste (Nampula) had the most with 9.

Figure 5
Institutional Diversity of Concept Paper Writers

Table 6
Institutional Diversity of Concept Papers and Proposal Writers

The concept paper writers in responding to the IIAM strategy for partnerships with the diversity of NGOs and private sector involvement in agriculture in Mozambique  strategic requirement for partners drew developed partnerships to write and research the concepts presented.  Such partnerships included district agricultural extension agents and NGOs such as World Vision International, Africare, Care and Technosurv. 
Several researchers also proposed mentoring relationships with international organization including ICIPE, ICRAF and ILRI.

Figure 6
Distribution of Proposed Research Sites by Province

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