Applications Invited for Refugee-led Innovation Fund

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About the Organization

UNHCR leads international action to protect people forced to flee conflict and persecution and those denied a nationality.

UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is a global organization dedicated to saving lives, protecting rights and building a better future for people forced to flee their homes because of conflict and persecution.

We lead international action to protect refugees, forcibly displaced communities and stateless people.

Our vision is a world where every person forced to flee can build a better future.

About the Grant

The Refugee-led Innovation Fund champions the creativity of all displaced and stateless people. It aims to reshape their participation in the delivery of humanitarian work by ensuring they take centre stage in the decisions affecting their lives, leading the identification of needs and the design of innovative solutions.

The Fund provides holistic support – combining financial resources, mentoring, and other expertise – directly to refugee-led organizations, to enable them to design and deliver new interventions that have a lasting positive impact on their communities.

Organizations led by displaced and stateless people make remarkable contributions to their communities but face considerable challenges accessing direct and flexible funding. Too often, they are excluded from existing networks of entrepreneurs and innovators, resulting in poor access to knowledge, information, and resources that could help them amplify their impact.

The Refugee-led Innovation Fund proposes a fundamental shift in programme architecture. It takes a grassroot approach whereby people who have experienced forced displacement are directly provided with meaningful financial resources and support to implement innovative approaches.

Selected organizations can expect the following:

• Financial support: Organizations can apply for up to 45,000 USD in funding to test and implement ideas with strong community-approaches that generate value for community members, not specifically linked to any thematic area or technology.
• Programme and project management support: Grantees will receive assistance from UNHCR and experts to help build their capacity to design and implement programmes effectively.
• Technical support, expertise, and coaching: Needs-based specialist advice will be offered, on topics ranging from technology to legal support and innovation methodologies.
• Peer-to-peer networking: Supported organizations will be encouraged to engage with each other, share experiences, learn from each other, and explore partnerships.
• Other support, based on project needs: This could include organizational support, help with project sustainability and scale, training on specific topics, business model advice, and media and communications support.
• An emphasis on learning: Support will be provided to enable grantees to measure outcomes, assess their impact, and gather information to support growth. They will be encouraged to document, share, and make use of relevant learnings. Discussion and reflection with their communities will enable them to incorporate and respond to feedback.

Eligibility

The Fund supports innovation by all organizations led by people with lived experience of forced displacement, including refugees, asylum-seekers, the internally displaced, returnees, and stateless people that are recognized within their communities due to their past significant contributions.

Applicants are asked to apply as a team, usually as part of an existing organization.

The Fund accepts applications from both registered and unregistered organizations that are well known in their communities due to their past significant contributions and initiatives.

Additional attention will be given to ensuring organizations led by LGBTIQ+ persons, women, people with disabilities, Indigenous populations and other underrepresented groups receive support and encouragement to apply to the Fund.

How to Apply

Applications go through a two-stage selection process.

In the first stage, organizations are invited to submit a brief expression of interest by 31 May 2024 at 23:59 EST (Panama time; UTC-5) in the language of their preference. This expression of interest (EOI) will provide a short overview of the identified challenge and proposed solution. The Innovation Service will review these applications and identify a shortlist of applications.

In the second stage, shortlisted organizations will have a further three weeks to submit a full application. They will receive support from the Innovation Service and UNHCR country offices to develop and submit these detailed applications.

Apply now

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Tags Entrepreneurship Innovations and Technology Others