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Pretoria – The Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) Grand Challenge Southern and Central Africa Regional Hub (S/CA RIH) announced the four winners of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-funded Zimbabwe Biogas Open Call for Innovations.
The Zimbabwe Biogas Open Call for Innovation (OCFI) awardees are from various provinces in the country and work in the energy-agriculture technology and water-energy-agriculture technology sectors. Together with the S/CA RIH, the innovators will address energy access, food security, and poverty reduction, through environmentally sustainable and climate-resilient technology that protects nature and biodiversity.
WE4F will disburse $120,000 in grants to the four innovators. In addition to the grants, WE4F will provide each innovator with technical assistance and investment facilitation. The four awardees are:
Energy Signatures – helps rural farmers by constructing biogas systems that provide energy for cooking and organic fertilizer for crop production. Their systems are accessible on a pay-as-you-go scheme helping farmers to access energy more affordably.
GreenZim Ventures – works to expand its biogas solutions to the dairy industry by installing biogas digesters at dairy cooperatives’ communal milk collection centers. This will reduce their dependence on conventional electricity for heating, cooling, and/or refrigeration.
Onyx Earth – constructs biogas systems that separate nutrient water from an organic by-product that can be used as fertilizer. The water is placed in portable tanks for irrigating gardens, and farms use the organic by-product to fertilize their crops.
Palmworth Investments – constructs biogas systems for pig farms; the organic by-product the system produces provides surrounding communities with an organic fertilizer for their crop fields.
WE4F is a joint $88 million international initiative of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Union, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Netherlands, the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation, Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). WE4F aims to increase food production, impact gender and poverty, and promote biodiversity, climate, and environmental resilience by sustainably scaling solutions to meet the challenges in the water-energy-food nexus.
The WE4F Southern and Central Africa Regional Innovation Hub (a consortium of Tetra Tech, Open Capital Advisors, and International Water Management Institute) supports the expansion of energy and/or water-efficient innovations in 12 countries, with a focus on women and the economically vulnerable. Innovations include technologies, business, finance models, and new modes of cooperation.
To learn more, visit: https://we4f.org/sca and follow @WE4FGCD on X.com.