Reckitt Access Accelerator for Social Entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Kenya

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Are you an entrepreneur with a solution focused on improving water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and/or sexual and reproductive health (SRH) in Nigeria or Kenya? The Access Accelerator could be the program for you! This program could help take your idea to the next level with expert mentorship, network expansion, and seed funding. Don’t miss this opportunity!

What is the Reckitt Access Accelerator?

The program is delivered by Reckitt, the consumer health, hygiene and nutrition company, home to some of the world’s best known brands such as Dettol and Durex, in partnership with Yunus Social Business (YSB), an organization co-founded by Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prof. Muhammad Yunus with expertise in social enterprise accelerators.

They have created the Access Accelerator to harness the power of business to tackle the world’s greatest problems. Social enterprises combine business efficiency with community impact, and by accelerating their growth, we can enable access to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) for more people, whilst also driving economic growth, creating jobs, and reducing poverty. By working with entrepreneurs that inherently understand the needs of their communities, we can reach people with solutions that work. This approach also provides a platform for Reckitt employees to directly engage and contribute to our purpose, making them catalysts for impact.

To date, they have helped scale 18 social businesses, with innovations ranging from solar-powered water purification systems, to youth-oriented handwashing education programmes, to reusable menstrual pads. (Learn more about the selected social entrepreneurs for our previous cohorts in Nigeria, South Africa, and Brazil.)

For this upcoming acceleration cycle, they have expanded the open call for proposals to include businesses that aim to improve sexual and reproductive health (SRH) solutions. Recent research has drawn significant connections between WASH and SRH, where access to WASH is considered a fundamental component of sexual health especially when it comes to preventing and managing sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and securing the rights of women and girls.

Eligibility Criteria For Access Accelerator

They are seeking social businesses based in Nigeria and Kenya that address the challenges of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) and sexual and reproductive health (SRH) through:

Improving Infrastructure of Access
- Solutions to reduce loss in water distribution
- Solutions for better management and technical training of service providers and public agents responsible for water and sewage
- New and effective forms of financing for the sector (providers and consumers)
Innovation and decentralization
- New technologies that offer cleaner, regenerative, and cost-effective solutions for access to water ‍
- New and cost-effective solutions for sanitation services ‍
- New and easy-access solutions for better hygiene practices and concepts for their distribution
- Methodologies for efficient maintenance of water, sanitation and hygiene solutions ‍
- New and cost-effective solutions to educate, raise awareness, prevent, and treat sexually transmitted diseases and promote sexual and reproductive health
Information, education & community management
- Methodologies and social interventions for information and education on water, sanitation, hygiene, and sexual and reproductive health‍
- Methodologies and social interventions for community management of existing and new water, sanitation, hygiene and sexual and reproductive health solutions.

They also encourage applications from social enterprises that offer WASH and SRH solutions for the following beneficiary groups:

Women and girls
Populations in remote and rural areas
Populations in informal settlements

Access Accelerator Benefits

All social businesses who complete the program will get access to:

Tailored support & capacity-building: Receive mentorship and topic-based guidance from industry professionals, including Reckitt employees, who can offer learning across a wide range of subjects from digital marketing to impact measurement & management. ‍
Extensive business network: The Access Accelerator offers social entrepreneurs an open door to partners and supporters from Reckitt, Yunus Social Business, and the global WASH community who are fully committed to creating better access to WASH for the long-term.‍
Access to seed funding: Financial support to help scale the growth of the participating social businesses beyond the accelerator