Gates Foundation’s Request for Letter of Inquiry: Round 3 of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a new funding opportunity under its Water, Sanitation & Hygiene program which works with partners wot develop sustainable sanitation services that work for everyone. Under this new funding, the Foundation is seeking Letters of Inquiry (LOI) for the third round of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge.

The Reinvent the Toilet Challenge is designed to prototype a means of dealing effectively and cost-efficiently with human waste for the 2.5 billion people on earth who currently lack access to safe and affordable sanitation.

Successful applicants will participate in the next phase of the Reinvent the Toilet Challenge by designing, prototyping and testing entirely stand-alone, self-contained, practical sanitation modules which intake bodily wastes or fecal sludge collected from pit latrines and septic tanks and swiftly dispose of them without any incoming water piping, outgoing sewer piping or electric or gas utility services. These modules must intake all outputs of the serviced population – ultimately at single-residence scales (smaller-scale individual family toilet solutions) or group of households (larger-scale neighborhood fecal sludge processor solutions)– with minimal module footprints and assured biosafety. The anticipated capital and operational cost for the final products (commercial units) is expected to be less than $0.05/user/day, both for the family and neighborhood solutions. The design should anticipate the effects and fate of complementary sanitary products entering the system such as paper, cloth, sand, and other personal hygiene products and chemicals.

This RFP will use a mandatory two-step application process. The first step requires the submission of a Letter of Inquiry (LOI) in the form of a 5 page concept note, detailed in the RFLOI Overview and Guidelines. After evaluation of all LOIs received, the foundation will contact those applicants who are eligible and have projects of further interest to complete step two—the submission of a full proposal. If invited to submit a full proposal, instructions on the preparation of the proposal will be provided at the time of invitation.

The deadline to submit applications is 8 November 2012. For more information, visit this link.

Spider: Seed funding available for ICT4D Projects

The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (Spider) is offering catalytic seed funding to innovative projects focused on Information, Communication and Technology for Development (ICT4D). Organizations seeking this funding should submit innovative and experimental projects.

Following are the thematic areas and their crosscutting issues under this grant opportunity:

Thematic areas:

• democracy: e-government, e-governance and ICT for empowerment
• education: education management, e-learning and digital literacy
• health: healthcare management, e-health and public health

Crosscutting ICT issues:

• low cost and high quality technology free and open source software (FOSS)
• mobile technology for development (M4D)

Crosscutting development issues:

• youth empowerment
• cultural creativity
• capacity development

Spider will provide support to projects implemented in any one of the  twelve priority countries for Swedish development cooperation: Bangladesh, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.

Proposals can be submitted anytime. For more information, visit this link.

£10,000 Award Opportunity at the World Habitat Awards 2013

The World Habitat Awards are given to projects that provide practical and innovative solutions to current housing needs and problems. The awards offer £10,000 presented to each of the two winners at the annual United Nations global celebration of World Habitat Day. In addition to the awards, the winners also get international recognition.

Projects & approaches are sought that …

• Demonstrate practical, innovative and sustainable solutions to current housing issues faced by countries all around the world.
• Can be transferred or adapted for use as appropriate.
• View the term habitat from a broad perspective and bring other benefits as well, such as energy or water saving, income generation, social inclusion, community and individual empowerment, capacity building or education.

The World Habitat Awards (WHA) competition has a two-stage entry process:

• Stage I submissions need only comprise a summary of the key aspects of the project. From these preliminary submissions, ten projects are selected by an Assessment Committee to go forward to Stage II of the competition.
• Stage II submissions are evaluated by an independent advisory group before being put to a panel of international judges, which includes the Executive Director of the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-HABITAT) and the Rector of the United Nations University, Tokyo. Evaluation visits are carried out to some of the projects prior to the final judging.

The deadline to submit applications for the 2013 World Habitat Awards is 1 November 2012. For more information, visit this link.

$5000 Award Opportunity from World Bank’s JKP

The Job Knowledge Platform seeks to find practical solutions for job creation and job opportunities. It aims to:

• Share insights and build synergies across different approaches, sectors, and disciplines
• Create a community to exchange challenges and solutions
• Inform important policy debates

The platform his managed by the World Bank in collaboration with partner organizations the Economic Research Forum, Fedesarrollo, the International Development Research Centre, the IZA the Institute for the Study of Labor, the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association, the McKinsey Global Institute, and REALM/AMERU.

It is presently seeking applications from NGOs, international organizations, think tanks, academia, civil society, and other key stakeholders in the jobs agenda for the following awards:

1. Most Promising Approach Award

2. Most Recommended Award (based on the number and ranking of online user reviews)

3. Best in Addressing Political Economy and Implementation Challenges Award

Each category will have one winner, to receive an award of $5,000 USD from the JKP, through its partner The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).

Winners will be invited and flown in to the awards ceremony in the Fall.

Submissions can be made online at jobsknowledge.org or email.  To be considered for the awards, forms must be submitted by September 15, 2012 December 15, 2012.

(IMPORTANT: Please note that the JKP website continues to show the deadline as September 15, 2012 which, according to our sources, will be updated soon to December 15, 2012)

For more information, visit this link.