Innovators across the African continent including Nigeria will get the opportunity to bring their unique solutions to life through the Grand Challenges Africa programme which aims to commit $7 million funds in innovative ideas and research.
The Grand Challenges Africa programme was announced recently in Kenya by the African Academy of Sciences and the NEPAD Agency’s Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA) in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
The programme will run for the next five years and comprise of the Grand Challenges Africa Innovation Seed Grants which will provide funding for scaling up innovation in the continent.
“Solutions for Africa’s challenges do exist within the continent. As an African grant-making body, we are laser focused on tapping the best minds on the continent to develop innovative local solutions to our health and development challenges,” Tom Kariuki, AESA’s director told BusinessDay.
Qualifying for the grant requires ideas capable of developing into groundbreaking research and innovations. About 40 projects will receive up to $100,000 in Grand Challenges Africa Innovation Seed Grants (GCA-ISG) for two years funded over the five-years that the scheme will run.
The GC Africa Grants will fund innovators resident in Africa with any level of experience, working in any discipline in colleges, universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-governmental and no-profit organisations.
Innovations which receive the $100,000 seed grants and show promise for scaling up will be eligible to apply for additional funding of up to $1 million.
The first call for proposals which began in the month of November as part of the GC Africa Innovation Seed Grants is focused on innovators seeking solutions and strategies to help Africa meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 3 target for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH).
The key areas are new technologies to enable rapid identification or exposures that lead to poor outcomes in pregnancy, birth and in the first month of life – these could be exposures to communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Another area is the precision medicine approaches and techniques to identify microbes and other exposures in Africa that may increase susceptibility to non-communicable diseases like cancer, cardiovascular diseases etc in mothers and children under 5 years of age.
The third area is the creative approaches to engage the public and inspire policy and decision makers to increase investment in African Research and Development.
“While great strides have been made in reducing mortality in Africa, maternal and neonatal mortality rates remain unacceptably high. We are seeking bold new ideas with potential for enormous impact in Africa, so that mothers and children not only survive, but thrive,” Dr Kariuki said.
