Deadline: 4-Jan-22
The Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub is pleased to announce its first Call for Innovations.
The S/CA RIH supports innovative companies and organizations that work in the Southern Africa and Central Africa and produce more food while using less water and energy. Together with investors and partners, the S/CA RIH works to scale mid-to-later stage enterprises that have an environmental and social impact in the water-energy-food nexus.
Objectives
- WE4F is a second-generation Grand Challenge for Development that capitalizes on the learnings from Powering Agriculture: An Energy Grand Challenge for Development (PAEGC) and Securing Water for Food (SWFF).
- The program aims to address the above-described trends and challenges.
- The WE4F Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub aims to expand the scale of innovations that impact the energy-food, water-food, or energy-water-food nexus to increase the sustainability of agricultural food value chains, improve energy and water efficiency as well as to improve climate resilient agriculture and sustainable management of natural resources and biodiversity in the 12 target countries across Southern and Central Africa, with a particular focus on the poor, women, and other Base of Pyramid (BoP) beneficiaries like smallholder farmers.
- The WE4F Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub is looking for organizations with a track record of successful sales and intending to expand their businesses commercially, using a sustainable business model.
- The organizations will benefit from technical assistance provided to scale up their businesses and attract private capital. The WE4F grant funding can also be used as a catalyst to attract investors.
- If you have a commercially proven product, service, or sustainable business model that you would like to pitch to an investor for debt or equity investment, they invite you to apply to this program. However, WE4F is probably not the right vehicle for you if you have a great idea for a development project but no track record of successful sales.
Focus Areas
WE4F aims to:
- Provide organizations with the technical assistance needed to sustainably scale solutions to meet the challenges in the WE4F nexus.
- Provide companies and organizations with the advisory services and connectivity they need to raise private capital for scaling, in line with their strategic goals.
- Promote climate and environmental resilience and biodiversity through the sustainable, holistic management of natural resources and ecosystems.
- Promote gender-smart sustainable models through targeted and integrated technical assistance.
- Enable the supported organizations to increase food production through a more sustainable and efficient usage of water and / or energy.
- Enable the supported organizations to increase income for Base of the Pyramid (BoP) demographics in both rural and urban areas.
Thematic Areas
The WE4F Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub is looking for organizations with scalable products or services that address the below themes:
- Theme 1: Innovations in food production to reduce water usage
- Theme 2: Efficient use of water resources for food production
- Theme 3: Sustainable use of energy and water on farms
- Theme 4: Energy innovations for food processing, and/or logistics
- Theme 5: Food production with efficient energy use
- Theme 6: Leveraging food waste for energy
Why Participate?
- For winners of this challenge, WE4F will feature their interventions, facilitate access to funding and networking opportunities, and provide technical assistance to support the proposed activity in achieving measurable results and impact.
- WE4F will award Fixed Amount Awards (FAA) between $40,000 and $200,000 subject to the availability of funding. Each FAA will be funded based on milestones and an implementation plan that are mutually agreed upon. Grant-funded activities must be completed within one to three years. The applicants who are not successful for the grant award may still be considered for strategic technical assistance and investment facilitation supports that will help them scale.
What they’re Looking For?
- Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) is looking for mid- to late-stage enterprises, nonprofits with a for-profit program, and other organizations based in the Southern and Central Africa, who have innovative water-food, energy-food, and water-energy-food solutions.
- Applicants must meet the minimum requirements outlined below to participate in this call for innovation.
- Women-owned and women-led organizations are encouraged to apply.
Target Groups
The WE4F Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub works with entrepreneurs and innovators through the following actors, who are defined as “organizations”:
- Private, for-profit companies whose major part of their business model and innovation addresses the water-energy-food nexus challenges.
- Non-profits, non-governmental organizations or universities who maintain their own budget, are able to generate revenue and are able to do this by commercializing an innovative product or service that addresses the water-energy-food nexus challenges.
- Other actors that are identified on a case-by-case basis by the Regional Innovation Hub who fit the criteria of WE4F and are crucial for the scaling of impacts.
- Through our support for the organizations, the WE4F Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub aims to target poor women and men, smallholder farmers and other BoP beneficiaries. Specifically, our interventions will help organizations providing nexus-relevant products and services reach women and the poor as commercial customers, equipping them with the means to achieve greater earnings and social mobility.
Eligibility Criteria
- Location: The S/CA RIH supports innovators from Angola, Botswana, Central African Republic, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Lesotho, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Applicants must be legally registered in at least one of these countries. If expansion into a new country is a key part of an applicant’s business plan, they must demonstrate that they already have partners in place in that country to be considered.
- WE4F is open to legally incorporated/registered for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations or academic institutions with a proven business model, recurring sales, an existing customer base, and the ability to generate revenue and maintain a self-sustaining operational budget.
- WE4F is open to all relevant organizations/companies which are ready to scale. they encourage applications from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
- Through this Call, they are seeking technological and business innovations that address the six thematic areas described above.
- In this Call, applicants should adhere to the following criteria:
- Operate with a financially sustainable business model, either as a private company or a non-profit organization or academic institution that is responsible for sustainably generating revenue.
- Address the water-energy-food nexus challenges.
- Have a well-defined plan for expansion.
- Build sustainability into the fabric of the intended expansion.
- Understand the local enabling environment for technology and business innovations.
- Promote user-centered design, not technology for the sake of technology.
- Demonstrate direct or strong indirect benefits for the poor.
- Show how their innovation benefits women or improves gender equality.
- Have a local presence and develop market-driven partnerships.
- Have strong financial systems and financial growth models/sustainability plans and ability to adapt these in different scenarios.
- Have a basic understanding of ESG issues and showcase strong commitment to ESG integration into their business model.
- Have a gender balanced team which can scale up innovation in a sustainable manner.
For more information, visit https://we4f.org/apply-sca
