The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), Germany's Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), DST, the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA - NL) have together launched the Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) Grand Challenge for Development. The Grand Challenge intends to pair access to funding with acceleration support services.
USAID, along with its partners, seek to unlock the potential of private capital to drive inclusive growth of enterprises at the WE4F nexus. The WE4F Grand Challenge aims to promote access to finance, raise awareness of investment opportunities, lower transaction costs, and mitigate the risk of investments that generate positive social, economic, and environmental impact. To support this objective, WE4F will establish a Regional Innovation Accelerator to support and scale of innovations that impact the nexus of water and energy for food.
The WE4F Asia Regional Innovation Accelerator will be based in Bangkok, Thailand and will focus on enterprises from 16 countries covering both South and Southeast Asian region. USAID has partnered with Intellecap to support the rapid operationalization of the South/South East Asia Innovation Hub by providing the Accelerator staff with a current investment opportunity pipeline and landscape assessment. This assessment focuses on potential innovators, the capital and technical/advisory services needed to grow and scale these companies, and who is best positioned to provide these services
To support this initiative, we are seeking to identify the most promising and innovative enterprises promoting better utilisation of energy and water for food production.
