Innovating for Climate Resilience
Funding to test and expand climate-adaptation solutions that can improve the lives of millions of people living in poverty in developing countries. Applications are currently closed.
Tämän rahoitusmahdollisuuden kuvaus on toistaiseksi englanniksi.
Global Innovation Fund (GIF) funds innovations that help people living in poverty withstand and adapt to climate change. Examples include drought-resilient food production, flood protection, reliable water supplies, early-warning systems and health services that cope with climate shocks.
Funding follows the solution’s development stage:
- Pilot: up to US$230,000. Test an early innovation in a real-world setting, with a credible development plan and a reason to expect better impact or value than existing approaches.
- Test and transition: up to US$2.3 million. Build on promising small-scale results, strengthen evidence and establish whether the solution can grow. Commercial proposals need evidence of customer demand; public-sector or mixed approaches need evidence from pilot implementation.
- Scale: up to US$15 million. Expand a solution with strong evidence of impact and a credible operational and financial plan to reach millions of people.
GIF can provide grants, loans, convertible debt or equity. A loan must be repaid; convertible debt can become an ownership stake, while equity makes the investor a part-owner. GIF seeks a financial return on debt and equity. Explain why the instrument you request fits your work.
Grants cannot finance purely commercial or profit-making activity. They can suit nonprofit work that does not earn revenue from users. A for-profit business may seek a grant for public-benefit work, such as creating a market, working with government or producing resources for general use, or for an evaluation that shares learning about effects on poor people or benefits the development sector.
GIF is not accepting applications. Its latest application window closed on 15 January 2025.
Eligibility
Organisations can be based in any country: businesses, social enterprises, nonprofits, government agencies and research institutions may apply. An individual innovator must apply through an affiliated organisation. The innovation must target people in developing countries living on less than US$5 a day in purchasing-power terms: the equivalent of what US$5 bought in the United States in 2011. GIF particularly prioritises people below US$2 a day and vulnerable groups.
Your solution must improve on existing approaches, have evidence appropriate to its development stage and have the potential to reach millions of people. Your team must understand the problem and local setting and have the skills and partnerships needed to expand. A solution limited to one country is excluded unless it could reach a large share of one of the world’s most populous developing countries.
GIF does not fund standalone theoretical or laboratory research without a real-world pilot, political candidates or parties, or projects primarily supporting incubators, accelerators or other innovation funds. It excludes innovations that worsen climate vulnerability rather than reducing it, illegal or internationally banned activities, luxury goods, prostitution or trafficking, terrorism, prohibited drugs, gambling and pornography.
Recipients also undergo environmental, social and governance checks. Environmental exclusions include fossil-fuel exploration and extractive industries, energy-intensive projects, damage to critical wildlife habitats and unsustainable fishing. Extractive industries include mining minerals and fuels, with an exception for rock used in construction. Energy-intensive projects can include sectors such as cement, steel and thermal power. Social exclusions include forced or child labour, displacement of 5,000 or more people, unbonded asbestos, military equipment, radioactive materials and specified harmful products or activities. Recipients must not produce, use or trade in drugs absent from the World Health Organisation’s Essential Drugs List; this restriction applies beyond drugs that are illegal. The ESG policy also excludes substantial involvement in tobacco, alcohol, gambling or pornography: more than 10% of a company’s consolidated balance sheet or earnings, or of a financial institution’s portfolio volume. These recipient checks do not remove the exclusions on the funded innovation itself.
You must meet GIF’s minimum responsible-business requirements before funding, sign and comply with its Recipient Code of Conduct, and agree an action plan to manage identified risks during the funding period. Requirements include lawful minimum wages, fair and safe working conditions, nondiscrimination, respect for workers’ organising rights and a way to raise complaints anonymously. Anti-bribery, whistleblowing, grievance and human-resources policies are required. GIF can approve substantially similar alternative requirements when co-investing, subject to its General Counsel’s approval.
Safeguarding procedures must protect people who come into contact with your work from harm and abuse. Higher-risk work carries additional requirements, including relevant partners and subcontractors. Report suspected conduct-code breaches immediately and take remedial action; safeguarding incidents must be reported as soon as possible and within 24 hours of becoming aware of them. GIF also checks fraud, money laundering, bribery, terrorism and sanctions exposure, and avoids investments where material concerns cannot be addressed.
Funded products and information must benefit poor people or be accessible to them at affordable prices, suitable quality and within a reasonable time. Intellectual-property arrangements must support that access. These arrangements can cover both rights created by the funded project and relevant background intellectual property: existing or independently developed rights, including relevant improvements, that are necessary or useful for carrying out the project or protecting or using its outputs.
GIF encourages you to own these rights where reasonably practical; otherwise, obtain sufficiently broad licences and permissions from their owners, including third parties, to provide the required access. Depending on the circumstances, GIF may request rights to use and share project and background intellectual property. An agreed access strategy can require an ownership transfer or licence if you fail to meet obligations, become insolvent or undergo a change of control; these arrangements are decided case by case and can include background rights in some circumstances. GIF may request an exclusive licence to funded intellectual property if you cannot meet access obligations.
Funded research results must be shared publicly and promptly, subject to data-protection law, binding confidentiality and third-party rights.
How to apply
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- Applications are currently closed. Check the official application page for future calls.
Check GIF’s official application page for a future call; applications are currently closed.
GIF’s published process uses an English application followed, if selected, by a full proposal, discussion and due diligence: checks of your organisation, people, plans, finances and environmental and social risks. Submit only one initial application per idea; separate innovations can have separate applications. A rejected idea can be resubmitted with significant changes. GIF aims to respond initially within ten weeks, and describes full due diligence as typically taking six to nine months; these are not guaranteed decision dates.
The lead contact must have authority to apply, rights to the submitted material and accurate information. Application costs are not reimbursed. No funding is committed until due diligence is completed and a legally binding funding agreement is signed.
Mark confidential business information as confidential. GIF can share it with staff, reviewers and advisers who need it for assessment, where legally required, and with potential funders or support providers with your consent. Give GIF’s Investment Privacy Notice to anyone whose personal information is included in your application.