Early and unintended pregnancies have severe consequences for the young girls themselves as well as for society at a large. A broad number of factors contribute to increased adolescent/early and unintended pregnancies. For example, policies, legislations and accountability mechanisms which are not inclusive and/or do not fully ensure the promotion and protection of adolescents and young people’s rights, especially their sexual and reproductive health and rights have a negative impact on girls and young women and increase the chances of them becoming pregnant.
UNFPA is committed to achieving its three Transformative Results (TRs) by 2030, these being (a) ending preventable maternal deaths, (b) ending the unmet need for family planning, and (c) ending gender-based violence and harmful practices, including child marriage and female genital mutilation. In light of this, UNFPA is launching the Early Pregnancy Hacklab 2022, which will explore innovation as an approach to accelerating efforts toward achieving the three TRs and ensuring the protection and fulfilment of girls’ rights.
The Hacklab will target young innovators who have aspiring solutions that when taken to scale can make impactful change for girls at risk of early pregnancy. The hacklab will also identify intermediaries including accelerators within Country Offices (COs), incubators, investors, marketers etc who can support young innovators to thrive and become leaders of societal change. The project will identify innovators and connect them with COs to assist them with aligning with the UNFPAs mandate to develop their innovative solutions in addressing issues related to early pregnancy. This will mitigate the impact of early pregnancy on communities especially women and youth, identifying and empowering young innovators and activists to ideate solutions reflecting youth leadership on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR).
The UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office (ESARO) Early and Unintended Pregnancy HackLab will source innovative solutions to accelerate collective efforts to end Early and Unintended Pregnancies across the ESA region. The goal of this Hacklab is to create a world where communities, including women and girls, are supported and lead the campaign against early and unintended pregnancy. The HackLab will engage youth innovators, COs and an incubation partner to scale innovative solutions to end Early Pregnancy in East and Southern Africa.
WORTH
- 1. Each of the two emerging solutions will benefit from a seed fund investment of USD$10,000.
- Another $10,000 in-kind investment readiness business support will be provided by identified business coaches. The acceleration support provided by Afrilabs will include business support services including exposure to investment opportunities, business coaching, customer acquisition, brand positioning and awareness etc.
ELIGIBILITY
- Ideas must be new, innovative and respond to any of the opportunity areas identified above.
- Be based in a UNFPA SYP Programme country (Angola, Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe);
- Solutions must have been tested previously on a small scale and be at the stage to be scaled up;
- Demonstrate capacity with a clear plan for incubating the solution to scale;
- Innovations can be submitted by individuals, teams of individuals, non-governmental organizations (NGO) or companies;
- Priority will be given to solutions from innovators under the age of 35 or from youth-led organizations or companies;
- Align with the UNFPAs transformative results and/or core mandate;
- Align with the UN principles of innovation;
- Be scalable and potentially commercially viable solutions. Solutions that are adaptable to other contexts with little financial inject required;
- Have a demonstrable capacity to empower women and youth;
- Teams must be willing to adjust their solution if advised by their Country Office facilitating their technical capacity building;
- Willingness to showcase their solutions through communication platforms to be determined by UNFPA.
DEADLINE: August 21, 2022
To apply and for more information visit here
