The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have launched a $600 000 (R8.7 million) Innovations to Empower Women and Girls Challenge, to help disrupt inequalities and advance the empowerment of women and girls.
The global challenge is to identify innovations, including innovative technology solutions, to promote the empowerment of women and girls, focusing on ending unmet need for family planning, preventable maternal deaths, and gender-based violence and harmful practices.
To take part in the challenge, an entity must be registered as a company/organisation in a UNFPA programme country and the innovation must be implemented in the UNFPA programme country in which the company is registered.
The company must have already tested a prototype, proof of concept and a minimum viable product, which has been piloted and is ready to be positioned to scale.
In a statement detailing the rationale of the competition, organisers say. “The COVID-19 pandemic has reversed at least 20 years of progress for women and girls. The pandemic has overwhelmed health systems and supply chains across the globe and has derailed progress in sustainable development. In parallel, the pandemic has also catalysed the acceleration of innovation, including in the booming health technology market.
“In this context, the UNFPA, WIPO and ITU are launching the Innovations to Empower Women and Girls Challenge, to further develop and position to scale innovative solutions that can help disrupt inequalities and advance the empowerment of women and girls in all their diversity.”
The challenge will support women-centred tech innovations, “including those that provide affordable and sustainable access to essential reproductive health commodities, services and information, with a focus on hard-to-reach areas and humanitarian settings, and scale up prevention and response to gender-based violence and harmful practices”.
Organisers say 10 winners will be picked, with seed funding up to $60 000 provided in two tranches.
In addition, an invitation will be extended to winners to participate in a virtual bootcamp to further refine their plans and milestones in the project design plan (such as market entry, deployment and impact traction).
Winning companies will sign a nine-month contract during which the awardees will fully develop and start implementing their plans to transition to scale, and will receive technical assistance in intellectual property management and business modelling.
Interested parties have until 15 April to apply.
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