Deadline: 16-Sep-22
The Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub (S/CA RIH) is proud to announce its Call for Innovations to support 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.
Funding Information
Through WE4F, innovators from the S/CA region can access financial support of up to USD $200,000 per innovation, technical support, and investment matching necessary to make food production and farming more sustainable, productive, and bountiful.
Benefits
- Join a Network of Innovative Game-Changing Entrepreneurs
- Winners will be part of an extensive network and introduced to various partners, mentors, and service providers to help them achieve their expansion goals.
- They will also have access to an exclusive learning community where they can exchange ideas with their cohort peers in the cohort and other Regional Innovation Hubs through regular workshops and meetings.
- Receive Technical Support and Investment Facilitation
- Receive support to expand the business to other geographies, products, or services
- Attract and secure external investors by working with S/CA RIH’s Brokering Unit.
- Examples of support categories:
- Investment readiness
- Commercial expansion
- Marketing and communication
- Digitalization and technology enhancement
- Unlock Grant Funding To Help Your Innovation Grow
- Select organizations may qualify for grants to help achieve scaling goals, funding size ranges from $40,000 to $200,000 USD.
Eligibility Criteria
- 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.
- Types: 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.
- Size: WE4F is open to all relevant organizations/companies which are ready to scale. We encourage applications from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
- 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.
- Language: Application responses must be written in English or French.
- Matching Funds: Applicants should be open and willing to contribute the matching funds to the overall award if a grant is awarded. The final amount of matching funds will be determined on a case-by-case basis for each applicant near the time of award.
- Impact: Applicants’ innovations must have a direct, tangible linkage to water-food, energy-food, or water-energy-food. In addition, innovations must directly or indirectly impact poverty reduction and gender equality and have a positive impact on the environment and avoid negative environmental effects.
For more information, visit https://we4f.org/apply-sca