GSMA Innovation Fund for Humanitarian Challenges

Humanitarian challenges include, but are not limited to food insecurity, displacement, and natural hazards such as floods, earthquakes and typhoons.

The objective of the Fund is to test innovative use cases, partnerships, and business models in selected geographies, in order to improve access to and the sustainability of digital-enabled solutions for those who are affected by, or vulnerable to, humanitarian challenges.

The GSMA’s humanitarian innovation funds to date have supported primarly non-profit and non-government organisation’s (NGOs) innovations. A focus on for-profit small and growing enterprises for this round specifically will: reach an additional range of humanitarian innovations; leverage the GSMA’s unique expertise in supporting public/private partnerships and these types of organisations; and generate and share insights and evidence from these innovations to benefit crisis-affected communities, the humanitarian sector, and digital and mobile industry stakeholders.

The Fund is funded by UK International Development from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and is supported by the GSMA and its members.

Focus of the Fund

• The Fund is interested in solutions that use digital technology, especially mobile, which:
  • Prevent and minimise the impact of humanitarian crises through preparedness and early warning. This can be for challenges such as natural hazards or drivers of food insecurity (extreme weather, drought).
  • Improve preparedness and response to humanitarian challenges using frontier tech-enabled solutions including AI.
  • Respond to the needs of crisis-affected populations, including internally displaced persons and refugees, through access to humanitarian assistance, services, and life-saving information.
  • Are existing innovations that can be adapted or replicated in a new context to respond to a humanitarian challenge.
• A higher priority will be given to the projects that demonstrate:
  • A clear pathway and plan for long-term sustainability and social impact (such as through user uptake, business and financial viability, and follow on funding), demonstrating potential for scale and replication.
  • How mobile-enabled technology can be innovatively applied to support communities to prepare or respond to crises.
  • How mobile-enabled solutions can be inclusive and widespread, especially how the project will actively reach female users and other groups, such as persons with disabilities.
  • The value proposition of these business models for mobile operators and other technology companies and how a partnership with these companies in the short or long term could help benefit these business models.
• They particularly encourage the following applicants to apply:
  • Applicants whose organisations are female-founded and/or female-led and/or have good presentation of women at all levels.
  • Applicants whose organisations have a strong presence in their country of implementation and a commitment to supporting, upskilling and promoting local staff. Preference will be given to local and community-led organisations founded by local people who possess a deep understanding of local context. This includes refugee-led organisations.
  • Applicants who have partnerships with relevant local stakeholders (e.g., community-based organisations) to deliver the project on the ground.
  • Applicants who have a clear understanding of how their solution improves preparedness or response capacity to humanitarian challenges and have proactively taken steps to set targets and systematically measure these impacts.

Funding Information

• The amount requested can be any amount between GBP 100,000 and GBP 250,000.
• The duration of the grant-funded projects can be between 15 and 18 months.

Geography

• The Fund is open to applicants whose projects are implemented in countries that are eligible to receive official development assistance in the following regions:
  • Africa
  • Middle East
  • South and Southeast Asia
  • Pacific
  • The Caribbean
  • Latin America
• Additional due diligence checks and eligibility screenings may be required in certain markets.5 For these markets, applicants MUST be registered and operating in the country of project implementation.
• Please note that, as a U.S 501(c)(3) organisation, the GSMA Mobile for Development Foundation Inc. is obliged to comply with the sanctions, laws and regulations of the United States and other sanctions regimes as may be applicable.

Eligibility Criteria

• The following organisations are not eligible to apply to the Fund:
  • Non-profit organisations including NGOs.
  • Governments, government-owned agencies (or appointed government agencies).
  • UN agencies.
  • Mobile Network Operators (MNOs).
  • Universities or academic organisations.
  • Start-up accelerators and incubators.
• However, eligible applicants are encouraged to have partnerships with such organisations when it strengthens the value proposition of their application. To be eligible to apply, applicants to the Fund must meet all of the following criteria:
  • Be a small and growing enterprise.
  • Deliver humanitarian solutions to low-income and vulnerable populations in countries that are eligible to receive official development assistance.
  • Leverage digital technology, especially mobile, to deliver solutions described in sections 1 and 2.
  • Be an existing entity registered and operating in the country of project implementation (whether domestic or foreign-owned, or a joint-venture). In cases where responsibility for service delivery lies with a downstream partner, rather than the applicant, for example service delivery by a local organisation, it may be acceptable for the applicant to be registered in a country other than that of project implementation.
  • Be fully compliant with relevant business licensing, taxation, employee, and other regulations in all applicable countries of grant project operation.
  • Be registered and have a bank account in the country where they will receive the grant money (if not the same as the project implementation country). This account must be capable of receiving GBP payments as all disbursements will be in GBP.
  • Commit to providing 25% to 50% match funding depending on the total grant amount requested.
  • Only one organisation can apply for funding and become a grantee.
  • Have active users and commercial revenue (users and revenue from any products or services offered by the organisation) in at least one eligible country.

For more information, visit GSM Association.