Rainmaker Selected as Finalist for Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge

Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge, an initiative to use technology and innovation to find better solutions to global crises, announced its first round of finalists on September 25, 2018 at the annual Concordia Summit in New York City.

USAID Administrator, the Honourable Mark Green, and UK Secretary of State for DfID, the Right Honourable, Penny Mordaunt, announcing the Humanitarian Grand Challenge.

We are so proud to be selected among the 23 finalists for Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge. This partnership of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the UK’s Department for International Development (DfID), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of the Netherlands and Grand Challenges Canada seeks life-saving and life-improving innovations to help the most vulnerable and hardest-to-reach people impacted by humanitarian crises caused by conflict.

We will receive up to CAD$250,000 over the next two years to test and validate our approach of using solar energy to access water for safe consumption and regenerative agriculture in hard-to-reach places. The support will allow us to implement solar-powered water pumps and drip irrigation systems in remote areas of South Sudan, providing clean water, food and job opportunities to thousands of conflict-affected families by mid-2019.

The Humanitarian Grand Challenge was convened to find faster, cheaper and better ways to help those in crisis. We deeply share the belief that people affected by humanitarian crises must be empowered and supported as leaders and problem-solvers in humanitarian delivery, as the people closest to the needs and who understand the problems the best. Our approach works because it is locally-driven, co-designed and co-managed with conflict-affected communities. Through the Challenge, we will be able to engage governments and the private sector to work alongside affected communities and support millions of hard-to-reach people affected by conflict and climate change.

We are inspired by the other 22 finalists that will implement their bold local solutions to grand humanitarian challenges, and thrilled to learn about the additional USD$17.5 million investment from USAID, DfID and the Dutch MFA, with the next call for proposals being announced in early 2019. With 615 applicants in the first round, innovative ideas abound in conflict-affected regions. The additional investment will advance the Challenge’s goal of transforming the response to humanitarian crises around the world, and truly displays the power of public-private partnerships for building a prosperous and sustainable future.

For the Rainmaker Enterprise, the support brings us one step closer to our vision of realizing the right of every individual to live a peaceful and dignified life, which ultimately begins with access to water.

For more information on Creating Hope in Conflict: A Humanitarian Grand Challenge, visit: https://humanitariangrandchallenge.org/news-and-media