Deadline: 16-May-23
GSMA has newly launched the Innovation Fund for Climate Resilience and Adaptation 2.0 that will provide grants as well as additional non-financial and technical support to for-profit small and growing enterprises, including start-ups, that leverage mobile and digital technology to pilot or scale solutions that help communities in LMICs to build resilience towards the impact of climate change.
The fund will also strive to support solutions that contribute to climate resilience through activities strengthening biodiversity.
Objectives
- The objective of the Fund is to test innovative use-cases, partnerships and business models in selected geographies in order to improve the sustainability and scalability of digital enabled solutions that make a positive impact on low-income populations and those who are most vulnerable to current or future climate risks. The Fund also aims to generate and share insights and evidence from these innovations in order to benefit digital and mobile industry stakeholders.
- This Fund is funded by UK aid from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and is supported by the GSMA and its members.
- The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the UK and Swedish governments’ official policies.
Focus of the Fund
- The Fund is interested in solutions that use digital technology, especially mobile, to improve resilience and adaptation to climate change, with a higher priority given to applications focusing on one or more of the following:
- Digital solutions improving climate resilience and adaptation and focusing on vulnerable populations and ecosystems based in coastal areas, small islands, or urban settings.
- Digital solutions tackling challenges posed by increasingly frequent extreme weather events such as extreme drought, flooding, high winds, wildfire and higher risks of land slips and erosion etc. (with the exclusion of early warning systems).
- Digital solutions focused on:
- Nature-based solutions
- Regenerative agriculture
- Sustainable forests, coastal areas and wetlands that strengthen biodiversity
- Sustainable consumption and production
- Reduced food loss and waste
- Sustainable fisheries that strengthen biodiversity
- Air pollution management
- Nature-based solutions
- While some resilience and adaptation solutions will have Climate change mitigation benefits, projects with a sole and specific focus on Climate change mitigation (reducing and avoiding emissions) are not eligible for the Fund.
- A higher priority will be given to the following projects:
- Projects that demonstrate how innovative digital technology (especially mobile), can increase the capacity of low-income and vulnerable communities – in particular women – to adapt to, anticipate and/or absorb climate-related shocks or stresses;
- Projects that can clearly articulate and measure positive impacts on environment or biodiversity;
- Projects that demonstrate that their solution actively reaches female users;
- Projects that demonstrate what business or partnership models are required for innovative digital solutions to be adopted sustainably and at scale;
- Projects that demonstrate what additional socio-economic, commercial, environmental and climate impact can be achieved by using digital solutions to build climate resilience and adaptation; and
- Projects that demonstrate the value proposition of these business models for mobile operators and other technology companies and how a partnership with these companies in the short or long run could help scale these business models.
- A higher priority will be given to the following applicants:
- Applicants whose organisations are female founded and/or female – led and/or have good representation of women at all levels;
- Applicants whose organisations have a strong presence in their country of implementation and a commitment to supporting/upskilling and promoting local staff;
- Applicants who have partnerships with relevant local stakeholders (e.g., community-based organisations) to deliver the project on the ground;
- Applicants who have a clear understanding of how their solution improves the climate resilience of vulnerable communities and have proactively taken steps to set targets and systematically measure climate impact in relation to resilience and adaptation;
- Applicants that have not received prior UKAid or Sida grant funding through the GSMA. Applicants that have received grant funding from the GSMA in the past will need to strongly demonstrate what would be the additionality of the new grant.
Funding Information
- Applicants are expected to submit and justify their budget for the project to be funded, as well as their reasons for the funding amount requested. The amount requested can be any amount between GBP 100,000 and GBP 250,000.
- The duration of the grant-funded projects can be between 15 and 18 months.
Targets
- Examples of targets include:
- Number of most vulnerable people supported to cope with the effects of climate change
- Percentage of service users who have reported an increase in preparedness and contingency planning
- Percentage of service users with increased income
- Hectares of land which have been supported to manage land use practices more sustainably including, where relevant strengthening biodiversity
- Amount of food waste reduced
- Biodiversity targets such as species abundance and distribution, reduction in chemical pesticide usage etc.
- Targets will be broken down by demographics (e.g., gender, age, low income group) where relevant and appropriate.
- Some/select indicators will also be tracked for up to 2 years after the end of the grant and will require cooperation with the GSMA’s teams to collect additional evidence on project outcomes.
Eligible Countries
The Fund is open to applicants whose projects are implemented in countries that are eligible to receive official development assistance in the following regions:
- Africa
- South and South East Asia
- Pacific Islands
- The Caribbean
- Bolivia, Colombia and Guatemala
- Albania and Moldova
Eligibility Criteria
- Leverage digital technology, especially mobile, to deliver solutions.
- Be a small and growing enterprise or start-up to deliver climate resilience and adaptation solutions to low-income and vulnerable populations in countries that are eligible to receive official development assistance.
- Have active users and commercial revenue (users and revenue from any products or services offered by the organisation) in at least one eligible country.
- Be an existing entity registered and operating in the country of project implementation at the time of application (whether domestic or foreign owned or a joint venture). In cases where responsibility for service delivery lies with a downstream partner, rather than the applicant, for example service delivery by a local government, it may be acceptable for the applicant to be registered in a country other than that of project implementation.
- Be fully compliant with relevant business licensing, taxation, employee and other regulations in all applicable countries of grant project operation.
- Be registered and have a bank account in the country where they will receive the grant money (if not the same as the project implementation country). This account must be capable of receiving GBP payments as all disbursements will be in GBP.
- Be an eligible entity and demonstrate that a majority of their income is derived from commercial activities. Early-stage companies that have not reached this threshold will need to demonstrate a reliable path to sustainability via commercial activities that generate revenue to be considered.
- Only one organisation can apply for funding and become a grantee.
- All applications to the Fund must be submitted in English.
Ineligible
- Governments, government-owned agencies (or appointed government agencies)
- Non-profit organisations
- UN Agencies
- Mobile Network Operators
- University or Academic organisation
- Start-up accelerators and incubators
For more information, visit GSMA.