Nexus Grants for Innovation projects shortlisted

Nexus is pleased to announce the top four finalists for the Grants for Innovation 2012: CEDAC, Hydrologic Social Enterprise, S3IDF and Hivos.

Nexus opened a competition for members in January and a panel of experts selected the winning submissions in April. For this pilot scheme in 2012, Nexus will be actively fundraising for all finalist projects. One project will receive the grant directly from Nexus’ core funding, with a value of up to US$ 80,000.

About Grants for Innovation

The Grants for Innovation’s general objective is to support innovative approaches to climate change mitigation and poverty alleviation which could potentially lead to high impact projects after the innovation activities have been implemented.

The innovative activities include:

• Technology innovation: Testing and validating new pro-poor low carbon technologies that will lead to higher user friendliness, higher technological efficiency, and higher co-benefits for end users.
• Market innovation: Piloting the dissemination of existing technologies and proven concepts in a new market. Small grants through the Grants for Innovation also act as seed funding to professionalize project activities, build capacity within the organization, develop technologies and effectively package the project for further investments.

The shortlisted projects

• Cambodian Centre for Study and Development in Agriculture: Participatory Rice Value Chain

The aim of this project is to uplift subsistence farmers in Cambodia by empowering them with co-operative ownership of their own rice mill facility, and reinvesting revenues from organic rice sales worldwide into expansion across rural provinces. The rice mill will be powered by renewable energy – from the gasification of the rice husks. The charred rice husks can then be utilized as a soil amendment – thus closing the input – output loop in the value chain.

• Hivos: Low-Carbon Agricultural Practices

This project will capture and commercialize carbon savings from good agricultural practices through leveraging tools in integrated supply chain management, to enhance benefits to small farmers and encourage effective emissions management from a supply chain perspective. The project will be piloted in Kenya, in a coffee plantation, but the flexible tool can be integrated into supply chain management, and which is applicable to a wide range of sustainable agriculture projects in East Africa, and potentially other continents.

• S3IDF - The Small Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund: Social Merchant Bank Approach^SM (SMBA)

The SMBA is a model focusing on changing local financing and investment patterns towards pro-poor SMEs and social enterprises. The SMBA leverages philanthropic and development capital (including carbon finance) to mobilize local private capital to finance or co-finance viable enterprises. By working locally and providing bundled services, S3IDF not only addresses the need for infrastructure but does so in a way that leads to healthier and more self-reliant communities.

• Hydrologic Social Enterprises: School – adapted Ceramic Water Filters

Hydrologic aims to adapt its successful household model of the Ceramic Water Filter, for intensive use in schools. The project targets to distribute 2,000 water purifier in schools during the project period and to establish an ongoing supply through market channels. This adapted model could also tap other institutional users in the future, such as hospitals, clinics, and factories. This project involves the design, prototyping, market testing of a new model with school-friendly features including high flow rate, increased storage volume, sturdy construction, and appealing aesthetics. The project will use the Human Centered Design approach pioneered by iDE.

More information about the projects can be found in this booklet.

If you have any questions regarding these projects, please get in touch with Suzanne Chew, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it