BMGF Grand Challenges – Accelerating Catalyzing Solutions for Climate Change’s Impact on Health, Agriculture and Gender

Funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges initiative to better adapt to, mitigate or reverse the combined harmful effects of climate change on health, women’s lives and agriculture in particular geographies of interest.

Founded in 1997, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is a charitable organisation that seeks to improve the health and wellbeing of people in developing countries and within the US, and works to ensure that all people lead healthy, productive lives.

The BMGF Grand Challenge (GC) initiative seeks to engage innovators from around the world to solve the most pressing challenges in global health and development. This Accelerating Catalyzing Solutions for Climate Change’s Impact on Health, Agriculture and Gender GC competition seeks innovative research and pilot/feasibility projects utilising transdisciplinary approaches to better adapt to, mitigate or reverse the combined adverse effects of climate change on health, women’s lives and agriculture in the geographies of interest. 

GC partners, including GC Africa (Science for Africa Foundation), GC Brazil (Ministry of Health of Brazil), GC Ethiopia (Armauer Hansen Research Institute (AHRI)), GC India (Department of Biotechnology of India), and GC Rwanda (National Council for Science and Technology), along with the Pasteur Network, and supported by the Wellcome Trust, Foundation S-the Sanofi Collective and the Rockefeller Foundation, have launched this request for proposals (RFP) to identify and support promising innovations.

This RFP has been launched by multiple partners across multiple geographies and topic areas with variable funding levels. Candidates are advised to review the requirements for each RFP to determine their eligibility. The individual RFPs are listed separately on the Grand Challenges website. For those organisations eligible for multiple RFPs, they should choose the RFP that most closely aligns with the proposed project.

Climate change threatens global health and development progress and affects the health, wellbeing and livelihoods of future generations, especially women. The people whose health and wellbeing are most affected by the climate crisis are those who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it – namely, people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities. The effects include:

• Climate-related undernutrition.
• Surges of malaria and other vector borne diseases and food-borne/water-borne diseases.
• Increased potential for the emergence of novel diseases.
• Increased incidences of stillbirth, and worse maternal and neonatal outcomes.
• Negative impacts on all aspects of agricultural activities, a major source of income for those in low-income settings, particularly in women’s share of economic agricultural gains.

Innovations to scale the impact of existing green technologies are essential to cutting greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero and addressing the unprecedented health, agricultural and environmental challenges posed by climate change. It is crucial to understand the emerging problems in health and agriculture, either directly triggered by climate change, or as a result of disruptions (eg operational) downstream of crises created by climate change.

There is an urgent need to invest in creative solutions to help vulnerable populations adapt and build their resilience to the existing and future climate related challenges impacting health and agriculture, and build alternative livelihoods. This work will involve making those most affected, especially women, major stakeholders in discussions about how new climate resistant and adaptive innovations will be deployed, as well as giving them a deliberate choice and advantage in the creation of new economic opportunities that result from these investments.

This GC RFP seeks innovative research and pilot/feasibility projects utilising transdisciplinary approaches to better adapt to, mitigate or reverse the harmful effects of climate change on health, women’s lives and agriculture in the geographies of interest. These innovations include early warning and disease surveillance systems to respond to climate-event-driven surges in malaria and other vector borne diseases, as well as improved mapping of expanded vector ranges and vector-borne disease transmission.

Preference will be given to innovations that are formulated locally or adapted from other contexts. There is a particular interest in: locally led, system-level innovations that are scalable and sustainable; and cross-cutting solutions at the intersection of multiple scientific and engineering disciplines.

The focus is on specific topic areas. Innovators are encouraged to propose their own ideas related to the topics or consider the examples listed on the RFP webpage. Topic areas and geographies of interest are:

Health outcomes – Including systemic and compounding impacts of climate change on health. Solutions are sought targeting:  

• Early warning and disease surveillance. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil.
• Gender equality, diversity and inclusion. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil.
• Community health ecosystems. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil.
• Measurement & Evaluation (M&E). Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil.

Nutrition – Undernutrition is a consequence of climate change and it makes people more susceptible to its effects, particularly extreme heat exposure, which poses unique risks for pregnant women, newborns and infants under two years old. Solutions are required that address:

• Heat stress and nutritional status, in particular gestation weight gain, low birth weight, preterm birth, small for gestational age, early growth faltering (in children <6 months) and child wasting. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Brazil.
• Heat stress and micronutrient status, including anaemia and breastmilk quality.
• Improved real-time monitoring and surveillance of wasting and the spatial relationship between climate vulnerability and undernutrition. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Brazil.
• Integration of climate risk into social protection schemes and the inclusion of nutrition products and services as part of an essential nutrition package within social safety net programmes. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Brazil.
• Innovation in the composition of specialised nutritious foods, considering susceptibility of raw ingredients to climate shocks, price volatility and decreased nutritional quality. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Brazil.

Adaptation strategies for agriculture and income development – Focusing on women’s agriculture livelihoods. Solutions are sought for: 

• In-situ methods for measuring Biological Nitrogen Fixation (BNF) at field level to help validate climate-smart biofertilisers as next generation inputs. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Brazil.
• Scaling access to climate decision support provided by women- and youth-run, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Geography of interest: sub-Saharan Africa.
• (1) Climate-smart labour-saving technologies for rural women that are affordable and accessible with potential for scale; (2) Identifying opportunities for rural women’s organisations to influence national climate adaptation plans; and (3) Gender transformative climate-smart innovations for livelihood diversification on and off farm in food systems. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

Knowledge management and data integration of climate and health databases – Many vector-borne diseases may increase in localities that were not prepared for them before the advent of climate-change. Solutions are required that integrate data from climate scientists, disease modellers and government health officials to help address the rise of specific diseases. Potential areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Facilitating community participation in/crowd-sourcing data collection to track climate change impact at local level. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil.
• Integrating commercially available databases and local data into early warning systems that can drive decision making, working to ensure sex-disaggregated data when relevant. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil.
• Researching the relationship between climate change and the spread of vector-borne diseases to develop early warning systems to prevent outbreaks. Geographies of interest: sub-Saharan Africa and Brazil.

Effective response and resilient supply chains for crisis management – Maintaining routine health delivery or non-routine campaigns such as humanitarian aid and vaccination efforts will be an increasingly multifaceted problem as the need for rapid, directed humanitarian aid increases in the face of extreme climate events. There is a need to implement agile, resilient supply chains that allow for the re-deployment of interventions based on need against vector-borne diseases. Geography of interest: sub-Saharan Africa.

Funding body	Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF)
Maximum value	200,000 USD
Reference ID	S25862
Category	Economic and Social Research Medical Research Biotechnology and Biology
Fund or call	Fund