Deadline: 30-May-21
Applications are now open for the African Conservation Challenge to help foster authentic, trusted, dignified online dialogue between communities and other stakeholders engaged in conservation across the Southern Africa region.
The overall objective is to help communities take their rightful place as equal partners in policy negotiation, development and implementation processes. They hope to amplify their voices to ensure informed decision-making at national, regional and international levels that reflects the demands and rights of rural people to manage their wildlife.
It is believed that an online forum based on the concept of ‘verified identities’ of all participants will help foster authenticity, trust and raise confidence among participants that they are engaging with genuine Southern African community members in their own words, based on their lived realities and experiences as equals at the table.
By way of initial guidance, your entry might include some or all of the following:
- Support for Yoti’s digital identity solutions to help verify identities of forum members. For the purposes of this Challenge, you can assume that all participating community members will own, or have access to, a smartphone and an Internet connection. There will not be a need for them to have official identity documents for the purposes of this Challenge.
- Private and public member profile pages are needed to encourage openness and transparency. Not all of the information entered in a profile will need to be publicly shared, but the data does need to be captured.
- Support for multiple discussions, and the allowing of rich content such as audio, video and photos to be uploaded.
- Full moderation and content management tools in a secure admin area.
- A section to support education and awareness-raising efforts for conservation and natural resource management efforts in the Southern African region.
- The ability to run surveys and polls among forum members.
- Newsletter-style functionality utilising channels such as email, SMS and WhatsApp to keep members up-to-date on activities, announcements, etc.
- An eye-catching, friendly and accessible design which also renders well on mobile devices.
Funding Information
- The Challenge prize will be $15,000 (and include support from Yoti’s integrations team) to help the winner build, test and roll-out the platform. Resource Africa will take ownership of the final product, and be responsible for management and upkeep. Yoti will cover hosting, website registration fees (if applicable) and any other website-related fees for the first year.
Entry Criteria
Anyone wishing to submit an entry to the Challenge will need to qualify as per the following Criteria, and follow the Submission Guidelines:
- The Challenge is open to any individual or organisation based anywhere on the African continent. Applications from anywhere else will not be accepted.
- The Challenge will run from 25th March to 30th May, 2021. Entries received after the closing date will not be accepted.
- The winning individual or organization will be expected to develop the winning solution themselves, and not tender the work out to any other third party.
- The prize fund of $15,000 must be used to support the development of the winning solution, and not be used for any other purpose. The prize will be paid in three installments. The first is due on commencement of the work, the second at an agreed half-way point, and the third on delivery of the final platform.
- Entrants must submit a written proposal, in PDF format and no longer than ten pages, outlining their thoughts of the project and the website solution they propose, using the information provided in this Challenge Paper as a guide. Entries must include details including initial design ideas, a list of on-screen menus, a site map and any other functionality deemed suitable.
- Additional pages, up to a maximum of five, can be submitted if there are screenshots, photos or other images considered necessary for us to understand the solution being proposed. Please only use these extra pages for images and graphics.
- Resource Africa will provide final content for the live site – text, images, videos or anything else deemed relevant or useful. For the purposes of any submission, feel free to use any holding text or imagery that you have.
- Please provide some information on you, or your company, as part of the entry, and a little background about why you have decided to enter this Challenge. Information on staff or individuals leading the work (should you be selected as the winner) will also be helpful to your submission.
- Entrants agree to allow us to share their contact details with our Challenge Partners.
- The winner will be selected following reviews by Resource Africa and Yoti, and notified within one month of the Challenge closing date. Notifications will also be sent to those who were unsuccessful. They will happily discuss your entry with you if you were not successful and interested in understanding why.
For more information, visit https://www.yoti.com/blog/african-conservation-challenge-launch/