Applications Invited for FY2024 Development Innovation Ventures Annual Program Statement (APS)

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About the Organization

USAID leads international development and humanitarian efforts to save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democratic governance and help people progress beyond assistance.

President John. F. Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development by executive order in 1961 to lead the US government’s international development and humanitarian efforts.

U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of furthering America's interests while improving lives in the developing world. USAID carries out U.S. foreign policy by promoting broad-scale human progress at the same time it expands stable, free societies, creates markets and trade partners for the United States, and fosters good will abroad.

USAID works in over 100 countries to:

• Promote Global Health
• Support Global Stability
• Provide Humanitarian Assistance
• Catalyze Innovation and Partnership
• Empower Women and Girls

About the Grant

Through a year-round grant competition, Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) sources proposals for innovations that address international development challenges and improve the lives of people living in poverty in developing countries around the world. DIV provides tiered funding to pilot, test, and transition to scale (i.e., grow to reach the highest number of beneficiaries possible) those innovations that demonstrate evidence of impact, cost-effectiveness, and the potential to scale.

DIV funds four types of grants. Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3 grants follow a tiered approach that aligns the funding amount to the strength of the evidence of impact, cost-effectiveness, and scalability of the proposed innovation. Evidence Generation grants are reserved for rigorous evaluations of already scaled or scaling development solutions that lack sufficient rigorous evidence of impact and cost-effectiveness. More details on each of DIV’s grant types can be found in the “Stages of Financing” section below. Please refer to the glossary at the end of the document for definitions of terms.

DIV takes a portfolio approach to impact, meaning it takes relatively small, high-risk bets on early-stage innovations that may generate varying levels of impact as they are piloted, and invests larger amounts of money in later-stage innovations that are better able to demonstrate impact, thereby maximizing the social impact of the overall portfolio. DIV is deliberately open to all kinds of innovations and all forms of innovators, in all sectors and countries in which USAID operates. Ultimately, DIV aims to help transition the best innovations with proven impact to scale to improve the lives of millions of people around the world.

What DIV might fund

DIV recognizes that innovation can take multiple forms. Some examples of development innovations that DIV may support include the following:

• New technologies;
• New ways of delivering or financing goods or services;
• New business models;
• Cost-effective adaptations to existing solutions;
• New ways of increasing uptake of highly effective solutions, including replication and scaling to new places;
• Policy innovations;
• Social or behavioral innovations based on insights from behavioral science; and
• Data collection and rigorous evaluation to measure the social impacts of promising innovations.

DIV partners with innovators to save lives, reduce poverty, strengthen democracies, respond to climate change, help people emerge from humanitarian crises, and more. DIV welcomes proposals from a broad variety of applicants, including local partners and private-sector entities to deliver greater scale, sustainability, and effectiveness of development and humanitarian outcomes. DIV also welcomes applications from organizations that have limited or no experience working with USAID.

Core Principles of DIV The following are core principles of DIV: (1) evidence of impact on improving lives of people living in poverty in the developing world, (2) cost-effectiveness, and (3) viable potential for scale and financial sustainability. DIV provides tiered funding based on an innovation’s demonstrated track record of and potential for achieving each of these principles.

Stages of Financing

DIV funds four types of grants, and applicants must meet the criteria for the relevant grant type, as detailed below. The first three types—Stage 1, Stage 2, and Stage 3—align the funding amount to the strength of the evidence of impact, cost-effectiveness, and potential for scale and financial sustainability of the proposed innovation. DIV supports only those innovations that are at the post-prototype stage (i.e., the fundamental aspects of how the innovation works have already been tested). Applicants should apply for the stage that best reflects the current level of maturity of their innovation and do not need to enter at Stage 1. However, applicants must demonstrate in their applications that they have met the conditions of the earlier stage(s) prior to applying for a later-stage award. DIV reserves the right to consider innovations for funding at a different stage or amount than the applicant has requested, which may be addressed during a co[1]creation process after the application is submitted.

The fourth type of grant—Evidence Generation grants—is for rigorous evaluations of development solutions that are scaling or that have already scaled and lack sufficient rigorous evidence of impact and cost-effectiveness.

Given DIV’s limited pool of resources, it assesses whether a grant for a particular activity provides social returns that are competitive with likely returns from grants to other applicants. Accordingly, the more funding that an applicant requests—even within a funding tier—the higher DIV’s expectations for development impact, cost-effectiveness, and ability to scale.

To meet DIV’s requirements, many successful applicants form coalitions of partners with diverse skills and may also use or seek additional funding from other sources. Applications are stronger if they leverage non-DIV support and, all else equal, the more support that is leveraged, the stronger the application is. Additional support can take different forms depending on the nature of the innovation (e.g., a commitment from a developing country government to implement the innovation, a financial commitment from an external investor, in kind support, etc.).

DIV aims to be catalytic with its funding, which means that grantees should be able to achieve results after receiving a DIV grant that they would not have been able to achieve without that grant. Applicants should state explicitly why they are coming to DIV now and how a grant will catalyze their innovation.

Purpose: DIV funds Stage 1 awards to support the piloting of innovations in a developing country. Innovations at this stage are early in their development and require pilot testing to refine the basic model and establish real-world viability at a small scale. DIV supports only those innovations that are post-prototype and ready to be field-tested at the time of application (i.e., innovations that are still undergoing development in a lab or that are still at the idea stage are premature for DIV’s support).

Eligibility

• Organization Type. DIV accepts applications from anyone, including businesses, social entrepreneurs, individuals, nonprofit organizations, researchers, and governments.
• Geography. DIV supports innovations across all countries where USAID operates. A full list of countries in which USAID operates can be found at www.usaid.gov/where-we[1]work.
• Sector. DIV accepts applications across all development sectors, including education, environment, energy, democracy, economic development, and others.

How to Apply

All interested organizations must submit an initial application in English through https://www.usaid.gov/div/.

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Tags Innovations and Technology Rural Development Others