WE4F South and Southeast Regional Innovation Hub launches call for innovations

• Goal to foster innovation and enhance food security in region
• Helps foster grow through technical assistance, investment facilitation

Water and Energy for Food Grand Challenge (WE4F) South and Southeast Regional Innovation Hub (S/SEA RIH) is proud to announce the launch of the second WE4F S/SEA RIH Call for Innovations, to foster innovation and enhance food security in the region.

This call will support up to 20 organizations working on innovative technologies and business models to provide more sustainable water or energy solutions for agriculture. The selected organizations will receive customized support in the form of technical assistance, investment facilitation, enabling ecosystem support, and grants up to US$200,000 (RM832,000) to scale their businesses, combat resource scarcity, and foster the transition to sustainable, climate-resilient agricultural sectors.

Water scarcity, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss, inefficient food production methods, intensive agricultural water and energy use, climate change, and poverty all threaten the S/SEA region’s long-term prosperity and stability. Tackling issues related to water, energy, and food is imperative to overcoming these barriers and achieving greater stability. Together with investors and partners, the S/SEA RIH supports organizations with innovative solutions to produce more food while using less water and more sustainable energy sources in a socially inclusive manner.

In addition to funding organizations, the S/SEA RIH helps them grow through technical assistance, investment facilitation, and improvement of the business and policy environment. Through this support, the hub enables organizations to scale their impact on men and women smallholder farmers in the region. The winners of the second S/SEA Call for Innovations will join the 23 organizations who are currently already part of the S/SEA cohort. To learn more about currently supported organizations, visit: https://we4f.org/innovators

Innovations owned and led by women and with a focus on serving women and base of the pyramid populations are encouraged to apply.

The second S/SEA Call for Innovations will accept submissions from October 4 to November 19, 2021, with all information including eligibility criteria and application guidelines available at https://we4f.org/apply-ssea.

[Ed: Para updated to reflect new deadline for submissions.]

The S/SEA RIH is operated by three leading international organizations (a consortium of Tetra Tech, CrossBoundary and DevWorks International) who have many years of experience advocating for inclusive and equitable economic growth, gender equality, sustainable agriculture, and the sustainable use of energy, water, and other natural resources in South Asia and Southeast Asia. Together with investors and partners, the S/SEA RIH works to scale 40 mid-to-later stage enterprises that have an environmental and social impact in the water-energy-food nexus.

To learn more, visit we4f.org and follow WE4F on Twitter @WE4FGCD.

WE4F is a joint international initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union (EU), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Netherlands, Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).