REGIONAL INNOVATION BOOT CAMP HELD AT GRAND BASSAM, IVORY COAST
GFA invited 27 innovators from nine West-African countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, and Togo), to attend an innovation boot camp in Grand Bassam, Ivory Coast, for 3-days at the end of September 2021.
This workshop was organized by GIZ and GFA as part of the international initiative, Water and Energy for Food (WE4F). WE4F aims to increase food production along the value chain through improving sustainable and efficient usage of water and/or energy. The goal of the workshop was to identify and select promising innovators, who proposed scalable innovations in the water-energy-food nexus. The participants were selected from an initial online innovation call that ran from August 4th until September 1st 2021.
During the first day of the boot camp, four thematic presentations provided a platform to exchange experiences for learning how to overcome growth challenges and tap into existing opportunities to expand their activities. On day 2, all participants received pitch training in order to fine-tune their presentation with the support of seasoned experts.
The boot camp concluded with the competing presentations hosted on day 3, during which all 27 innovators show-cased their products and services for the jury. Palpable excitement was felt as the president of the Jury announced the 15 awardees along with the back-up list including a further six innovators. The GFA team will subsequently engage with the selected innovators in order to conduct a due diligence visit and design a tailor-made acceleration plan to support the growth of the innovators and scale up of their innovations.
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). Since April 2021, GFA supports the activities of the GIZ-run West Africa Regional Innovation Hub, and will support 15 selected enterprises to scale up their innovations.
Enjoy the video from the boot camp!
Press article Fratmat.info (French)
@USAID @EU @GIZ @BMZ @SIDA @WE4F #foodforall
