Call for Proposals on Digital and Green Innovations 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.
General and Specific Objectives
The general objective of this Call for Proposals is to increase the use of and access to digital solutions, as a vehicle to tackle environmental challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, while contributing to inclusive and sustainable development in the partner countries of the Belgian development cooperation.
The specific objective of the Call for Proposals is to identify and to support the scaling of Digital and Green Innovations (DGI) that are relevant for the country portfolio objectives of Enabel and the European Union in the respective Africa partner countries of the Belgian development cooperation.
This Call for Proposals will identify and support Digital and Green Innovations that are ready to or transitioning to scale.
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.
1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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).
Thematic Priorities
The Thematic Priorities of Enabel and its partners are the following:
1. Climate-Smart agriculture and sustainable food systems
2. Resilient cities and sustainable urban planning
3. Water management/floods prevention
4. Circular economy and e-waste management
5. 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:
1. Minimum amount: 100.000,00 EUR
2. Maximum amount: 150.000,00 EUR
Duration: The term of the action may not be less than 12 months, or exceed 14 months.
Outputs
Output 1 (Africa): Entrepreneurship support for digital and green innovation in the acceleration phase in Africa.
Output 2 (Africa): (Pre)-Incubation and pre-acceleration support in Africa
Output 3 (Latin America and the Caribbean): Capacity-building on earth observation in Latin America and the Caribbean
Output 4 (Asia Pacific): Entrepreneurship support for digital and green innovation in the acceleration phase in Asia Pacific
Output 5: Policy dialogues and partnerships
Output 6: Finance brokerage
General Target and Modalities
The Call focuses on providing grants and capacity building/learning opportunities to public institutions (national and/or regional), academia, CSOs, NGOs and other ‘not-forprofit’ actors (such as social enterprises or not-for-profit business associations).
This Call for proposals organises the competitive selection process, which will proceed in 2 rounds. After the second round only 4 or 5 of the received applications will be awarded with a grant to support the sustainable scaling of their proposed Digital and Green Innovations.
Geographic Scope
DGIs should be implemented in one or more partner country of the Belgian Development Cooperation in Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, DRC, Guinea-Conakry, Mali, Mozambique, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Uganda, Senegal and Tanzania.
This Call for Proposals appreciates DGIs that have multi-country/regional scope.
For the sake of coherence and longer-term sustainability of the supported DSIs, the Call for proposals will target and prioritise countries that are common to other EU partners implementing activities in Africa: Uganda and Rwanda.
Eligibility Criteria
Applicant
To be eligible for grants, the applicant must satisfy the following conditions:
1. Be a legal person; and be a public actor or be a private non-profit actor.
2. Be directly responsible for the preparation and management of the action with the co applicant(s) and not be acting as an intermediary.
3. Have already managed a grant (of public funds) amounting to 40% of the amount applied for. A certificate of satisfactory performance signed by the donor is mandatory and constitutes proof thereof.
4. Have at one’s disposal financial statements certified by an independent body (audit or statutory commissioner). Those statements must not be older than 2 years.
Co-applicant(s)
The co-applicant(s) shall participate in the implementation of the action, and the costs that they incur shall be eligible in the same way as those incurred by the applicant.
The co-applicant(s) must satisfy the eligibility criteria which apply to the applicant itself, except that:
they do not need to prove that they have already managed a grant amounting to 40% of the amount applied for;
The co-applicant(s) must sign the ‘Mandate statement’.
Deadline: 4th/09/2024
Link to the terms of reference: https://www.wehubit.be/drupal_files/public/2024-07/AP%2010_Guidelines.pdf
Application Link: https://enabel.submit.com//show/163