Resilience Innovation through Scaling Entrepreneurship (RISE) Urban Innovation Challenge
Centre for Community Initiatives Tanzania
The Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) is launching the Resilience Innovation through Scaling Entrepreneurship (RISE) Urban Challenge to convert innovative urban ideas that are meeting resilience needs in informality contexts and scale them to sustainable ideas. The RISE Urban Challenge provides customised support to maximise each initiative’s potential for impact and aligns potential funders to these initiatives and drive attention to the urgent need for urban systems transformation.
Why an urban resilience innovation challenge?
Not just the future is urban – but the present too.
Currently only 1.2% of urban climate investments flow to climate change adaptation and resilience solutions. Increasing investment flows requires diversifying and strengthening the solution pipeline across different models – for-profit, not-for-profit, private-sector-led and private–public partnerships, as well as nurturing an enabling environment – policy, finance, measurement and evidence-building – for these solutions to scale.
Vulnerability to climate risks is extremely skewed across urban populations, with informal workers, residents in informal settlements, migrants and displaced people, as well as young and elderly people, facing the triple challenge of higher exposure to climate change hazards, higher susceptibility to damages caused by climate change and a lesser financial ability to cope and recover from shocks. This presents both a challenge and an opportunity for innovative solutions that build resilience to climate risks.
After a rigorous global selection process, the team has chosen 15 initiatives. Over the next few months, the finalists will receive tailored support to maximise their impact, opportunities to connect with potential funders, and additional support to help them accelerate the shift toward more inclusive and resilient urban systems. Winners will be announced later in the year.
We’re excited to announce the 16 finalists:
- RODA Recycling Delivery: Advancing Social Equity for Waste Pickers, Brazil
- Resilient City Platform, Kazakhstan
- Carbon Harvest Tanzania: Turning CO into Clean Air and Sustainable Materials, Tanzania
- LivingWaters Systems: The World’s First Portable Rain Harvesting Gutter Units for Refugee and Off-Grid Settlements, Colombia
- MPost: Enhancing Urban Resilience through Digital Addressing, Kenya
- Harnessing Equitable Actionable Technologies through Artificial Intelligence (HeatAI), Nepal
- Life Platforms: Building Urban Resilience by Integrating Nature-Based Solutions, Mozambique
- Ecovironment: Scaling Climate-Resilient Construction through Plastic Waste Recycling, Sierra Leone
- A community-led innovation to transform plastic waste into eco-friendly construction materials for climate-resilient housing in the informal urban areas of Mocha, Yemen
- NEWA Somalia: Resilient Urban Retrofit Pods for Climate-Affected Communities, Somalia
- Fanmsaj Resilience: Women-led Innovation for Social Transformation and Urban Adaptation in Displaced Communities of Jérémie, Haiti
- BambuRemedy (Flood management and phytoremediation in urban spaces using bamboo: from basic research to plant care and innovation), Uganda
- PoBot is an AI-powered chatbot that mitigates migration risks and enhances worker protection, Philippines, Indonesia, Taiwan
- Green Resilience for Zarqa (GRZ), Jordan
- Systems Change for Resilient Housing: Using technology to increase access to housing finance and technical assistance, and scale resilient housing for all, Indonesia
- Developing local climate resilient housing resource centres in India and beyond, India
Read our Policy and Investment Brief here or below.
