Call for Proposals: Digital And Green Innovations Action In Africa (Up to 150.000,00 EUR)

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Applications are open for Digital And Green Innovations Action In Africa. Enabel has launched the Digital and Green Innovation Joint Action that aims at operationalising the advancement of the twin transition to a green and digital economy, with a strong focus on entrepreneurship and innovation.

It will foster digital solutions that tackle environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, while contributing to circular and resilient local economies.

This Joint Action is funded by the European Union, Germany, Belgium, Estonia and France and implemented by these member states, which provide expertise and contributions through their development agencies (i.e. GIZ, Enabel, ESTDEV, AFD & Expertise France).

This Call for Proposals is implemented by Enabel through its Innovation Hub – Wehubit, under the Digital and Green Innovation Joint Action.

Digital And Green Innovations Action Objectives

This Call for Proposals will identify and support digital and green innovations (DGIs) that are ready to or transitioning to scale.
Support will be given in the form of grants, specific technical support and capacity building activities

What kind of innovation fits into this Call?

The jury will evaluate innovations on three main criteria: the innovative aspect, the scaling aspect, and the green aspect.

Innovation:

To verify whether a solution qualifies as an innovation, Enabel adheres to the following three criteria:

The solution must be new or novel in the specific context, and at least ‘new’ or ‘novel’ to the intended end-users;
The solution must aim at transformative impact (beyond mere improvements or efficiency gains);
The solution is still to be developed, tested, adapted, adopted or scaled, hence the solution has not yet reached its optimal sustainable scale.

Scaling:
- The Call for Proposals specifically aims to identify innovations which have a proof of concept, are transitioning to scale or are already in the phase of scaling. In other words, to qualify for submission, proposed solutions must have already passed the early stages of ideation, prototyping and testing.
- Wehubit grants support scaling in terms of expansion. Expansion can be understood as geographical scope (implementation in new areas), users/beneficiaries (more or different users/beneficiaries), and/or services (development of what the innovation entails and offers)
Digital and green
- Digital and green innovations (DGIs) are defined as solutions that leverage digital tools and/or technologies to contribute positively to at least one of the following environmental objectives: climate adaptation, resilience, mitigation, protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems, sustainable use and protection of water and maritime resources, environment and water resources, pollution prevention and reduction, resource efficiency and systemic shifts like the circular economy.
- Digital tools and technologies are not seen as an objective but a way to tackle societal challenges and achieve sustainable social and economic impact, within planetary boundaries.
- This Call for Proposals will pay specific attention to those DGIs that are aligned with the thematic priorities defined by Enabel and its implementing partners under DGI Joint Action, and the thematic scope of Enabel Country Portfolios (that are to be found in Annex J of the Guidelines).

Digital And Green Innovations Action Thematic Priorities

The Thematic Priorities of Enabel and its partners are the following:

Climate-Smart agriculture and sustainable food systems
Resilient cities and sustainable urban planning
Water management/floods prevention
Circular economy and e-waste management
Sustainable, affordable and clean energy

Funding Information

The total indicative sum available for Enabel’s Call for Proposals is 750.000 EUR. The contracting authority reserves the right to not award all of the available funds.

Grants value

Any grant application under this Call for Proposals must fall between the following minimum and maximum amounts:

Minimum amount: 100.000,00 EUR
Maximum amount: 150.000,00 EUR

Duration: The term of the action may not be less than 12 months, or exceed 14 months.

Eligibility Criteria for Digital And Green Innovations Action

The Call targets public institutions and private not-for-profit actors such as academia, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and/or Social Enterprises.
To be eligible the applicant must satisfy the following conditions: 1. be a legal person 2. to be a public actor or a private non-profit actor 3. to be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co-applicant(s) and not be acting as an intermediary 4. have already managed a grant (of public funds) amounting to 40% of the amount applied for.
This Call for proposals is open for the 13 partner countries of the Belgian development cooperation in Africa: Niger, Senegal, Morocco, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea-Conakry, Mozambique, Burundi, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo.