1.Background

Climate change threatens hard-earned global health & development progress, and puts the health, well-being, and livelihoods of future generations in jeopardy. The 2015 Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) signaled a promise from global leaders to act—to limit global average temperature rise to within 1.5°C by 2040 and prevent the worst health and development effects of climate change. While no one is safe from these risks, the people whose health and wellbeing are harmed first and worst by the climate crisis, are also the ones who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect themselves and their families against it. These are mainly people from low-income and disadvantaged countries and communities. In low-income settings, rising heat, extreme weather events, changes in precipitation patterns, shifts in duration and prevalence of climate-sensitive diseases (malaria, dengue, many foodborne and water-borne diseases, etc.), and increased potential for the emergence of novel diseases all contribute to the damage of already weak primary health care systems and community health structures. This compromises accessibility, availability, provision, and uptake of essential health services for the most vulnerable populations.

Catalytic research and development (R&D) as well as innovations to scale the impact of green technologies is essential to cut greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero, and to address the unprecedented health and environmental challenges posed by climate change. It is crucial to understand the emerging problems in health, either directly triggered by climate change, or as a result of disruptions (e.g., operational) downstream of crises created by climate change. Consequently, there is an urgent need to invest in creative solutions to help populations adapt and build their resilience to the existing and future climate related challenges impacting health, and build alternative livelihoods.
 
In recent years, global leaders, philanthropies, and private investors have begun committing significant resources to climate change mitigation through funding R&D efforts. However, more is needed to unite partners across sectors and accelerate innovations addressing challenges at the intersections of climate and health. The Grand Challenges family of initiatives seeks to source and seed innovations and accelerate the development of transformational solutions. To this end, Grand Challenges (GC) partners including GC Rwanda through National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) with the support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is launching this request for proposal (RFP) call to raise awareness of the problems and promote actionable solutions in areas of climate for health.  

The Government of Rwanda’s policy on Environment and Climate Change underscores its commitment to have clean and healthy environment resilient to climate variability and change that supports a high quality of life of Rwandan citizens’ health and wellbeing. Improving high quality and standards of life for Rwandans is an important pillar of Rwanda’s Vision 2050, and this is well enshrined in the National Strategy for Transformation (NST-1) as the medium-term plan to achieve this vision. In order to achieve the national development targets, it is imperative to address the current and emerging national social, economic, and environmental challenges through addressing challenges of climate change’s impact on the health of the population through funding high-quality research addressing specific climate change challenges. In this regard the Government of Rwanda is committed to funding research and technology development through National Research and Innovation Fund (NRIF) that was launched in June 2018 to enhance opportunities for data-driven innovations and integration of research findings into policy and practice to improve the wellbeing of Rwandan citizens. As such, translation of knowledge and application of research findings is critical to determine reasonable interventions that promote climate change adaptation, mitigation and response towards better health and social well-being of a population.

Therefore, the National Council for Science and Technology (NCST) through Grand Challenges (GC) Rwanda intends to support and promote innovative research projects that address the intersection of climate change and public health with the aim of fostering a healthier population under the research theme “Accelerating and Catalyzing Solutions for Climate Change Impact on Health” (GC Rwanda Climate for Health).

The funding level is up to approximately Rwanda Francs one hundred and twenty million (RWFs 120,000,000) (USD $100,000) for each grant for a period of performance up to 24 months (2 years).

For more information on this call, read the RFP here

Click here to apply through the Research & Innovation Grants Management System (RIGMS).

You will need to login, Accept terms of use, go to Apply, select Research and Innovation grants, click on this grant to read its details and related documentation, then click on apply.

For more info on using RIGMS, read the user manual here

You can also watch the video here