US$7 million funding up to benefit Ugandan innovators

Are you a Ugandan innovator? Over the next five years, up to US$7million will be up for grabs to fund out-of-the-box ideas and research to improve Africa's health and developmental outcomes.

Calls for proposals will be issued for fresh funding every year, the first of which started Thursday.

This particular grant, dubbed the ‘Grand Challenges Africa Innovation Seed Grants' seeks solutions and strategies to reduce maternal, neonatal and child deaths in Africa.

The initiative, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was launched by the Alliance for Accelerating Excellence in Science in Africa (AESA), an initiative of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) and the African Academy of Sciences (AAS).

It comes at a time when maternal mortality is way too high. In Uganda, the health ministry statistics indicate that 16 women die every day, due to preventable child birth causes such as excessing bleeding and lack of skilled personnel.
 
Experts speak out

In a statement to the media by AAS's communications manager, Deborah-Fay Ndlovu said the initiative seeks creative approaches to inspire African governments to increase their research and development funding. In 2007, the African Union set a target for countries to allocate 1% of their GDP to research.

"The new funding is for innovators from anywhere on the continent with bold new ideas for increasing chances of survival at childbirth or African mothers, their newborns and children and to inspire policy and decision makers to fund research and development," the statement said.

In an email to New Vision, Ndlovu explained further: "Essentially people do research to produce new technology or find new ways of doing things. This call will ensure people are healthy and so can contribute to economic development of their countries. If people are unhealthy they can't work and contribute to the economy."

Dr Tom Kariuki, AESA's Director also said while great strides have been made in reducing mortality in Africa, maternal and neonatal mortality rates remain unacceptably high.

Estimates show that more than half the global maternal deaths and more than three-quarters of neonatal deaths occur in sub-Saharan Africa with more than half of maternal deaths directly or indirectly attributed to infectious causes such as HIV, malaria in pregnancy, sepsis and sexually transmitted diseases. Infections and complications related to preterm births also account for 88 % of new-born deaths. The Sustainable Development Goal number three(SDG3) says that by 2030, the global maternal mortality ratio should be less than 70 deaths per 100,000 live births

"We are seeking bold new ideas with potential for enormous impact in Africa, so that mothers and children not only survive, but thrive," said Dr. Kariuki.

Tips on how to win the grant

The first call for proposals  that opened today is focused on innovators seeking:

Solutions and strategies to help Africa meet the SDG 3 target for Maternal, New-born and Child Health. These cover key areas of:
        New technologies to enable rapid identification of exposures that lead to poor outcomes in pregnancy, birth and in the first month of life — these could be exposures to communicable and non-communicable.
        Precision medicine approaches and techniques to identify microbes and other exposures in Africa that may increase susceptibility to non-communicable diseases (cancer, cardiovascular diseases, etc.) in mothers and children under 5 years of age.
        Creative approaches to engage the public, and inspire policy and decision makers to increase investment in African Research & Development.

"AESA has established an open, merit based and blind review selection process, where the names and institutions of applications will be hidden from the peer review committee of scientific experts to ensure that the process is fully transparent," the statement added