SEforALL Powering Healthcare Innovation Fund 2024

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The Powering Healthcare Innovation Fund is a small-grants facility aimed at unlocking such opportunities and ideas, and growing innovation in the sector. The fund is backed by the UK Aid-supported Transforming Energy Access Initiative (TEA).

TEA will offer a Technical Assistance Facility that will be delivered by EED Advisory, to a certain number of prospective applicants to enhance their grant application skills.

Powering Healthcare Innovation Fund – Objective

SEforALL’s Powering Healthcare Innovation Fund will support the deployment of catalytic innovations that can improve access to electricity in healthcare facilities and potentially transform the sector. Through small grants in the range of USD 50,000 to 100,000 each, the fund will uncover new solutions to address the market more effectively than current approaches. i.e. they must be different to approaches that are already common in the sector. There will be two funding rounds, one in 2024 and a second in 2025.

Funding Details

The Innovation Fund offers small grants in the range of USD 50,000 to 100,000 each to innovative, out-of-the-box solutions in one of the following fields:

Data (e.g. how to collect and analyse better data)
Technology (e.g. piloting energy-efficient appliances)
Delivery (e.g. fostering intersectoral partnerships or piloting innovative business / financial models)

Eligibility and Selection criteria

The fund will focus on small and medium sized organisations, including SMEs, commercial organisations and NGOs, registered in certain implementation countries. A consortium can qualify for a grant but must have one lead contracting entity. Regional or country offices can apply if they have their own legal entity/registration in their host country. The maximum size of the legal entity or lead applicant organisation must be no more than 40 full-time permanent staff.
The lead applicant must be legally registered in one of the countries on the FCDO list (Annex 1) but can undertake work in any country on the same list. The applicant can also target more than one country.

The selection criteria include:

Considerations of the technical ability to carry out the work (in terms of thematic and geographic knowledge), within agreed timeframes and budgets, i.e, the organisations’ track record of similar work, and the technical skills and experience of the proposed team.
How realistic and viable the workplan, budget and project management aspects are, to ensure that grants will provide good value for money and add value to the sector from an innovation perspective.
Areas such as scalability, replicability, potential impact, and synergy with government, SEforALL and TEA Programme plans.
Proposals will be selected based on pre-determined criteria, which are set out in Annex 2.
Geographies – maximum 1 grant per country so the fund can be spread out, provided minimum criteria are met.

Powering Healthcare Innovation Fund Application Process

This will be a two-stage process that utilises a single application form for both stages.

Stage one: open to all applicants, where proposals will be assessed by the PHC team.
Stage two: shortlisted applications from the first stage will be assessed by the selection committee of external and internal sector experts. Grants will be awarded on set criteria based on the committee’s recommendations.

Powering Healthcare Innovation Fund Application form

The application form is available in English and French, however all contracting and reporting documents will be in English. Applicants are expected to provide the following information through the form:

Background about the organisation and the year it was founded
The organisation’s experience in carrying out similar work including relevant skills, qualifications and knowledge
The technical proposal outlining the objectives, work approach and methodology
A work plan, including timings, a list of activities and key indicators for tracking progress
A brief risk register along with mitigation strategies
Two relevant organisational or client references from the last two years (detailing source of funding, amount of funding, details of implementation, team members etc.)
CVs of key personnel (including one team member with demonstrated financial management skills)
An estimated budget to show how the grant will be used, and how this is linked to the overall impact of the work. Terms of payment will follow a deliverable-based framework. All costs must be in USD and inclusive of all taxes.