Africa Innovation Summit II – AIS announces Top 50 Innovations for Innovation Exhibition

The Africa Innovation Summit (AIS) serves as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and a catalyst for coalition and action towards building robust innovation ecosystems in Africa

Vehicle Energy Harvesting System (VEHS) by Clement Mokoenene, South Africa

The Africa Innovation Summit (AIS) (www.AfricaInnovationSummit.com) today announced the innovators selected from across the continent to exhibit their solutions at the forum, which will take place from 6 to 8 June 2018 in Kigali, Rwanda under the esteemed patronage of His Excellences President Paul Kagame and Pedro Pires (ex-President of Cabo Verde and 2011 Mo Ibrahim Laureate).

The AIS serves as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and a catalyst for coalition and action towards building robust innovation ecosystems in Africa. AIS 2018 will focus on innovation as a tool to address Africa’s pressing challenges.

An important aspect of AIS 2018 will focus on profiling and supporting solutions that are already examples of how Africa is addressing her challenges with new and innovative thinking. As such, AIS 2018 Innovation Track and Exhibition is an integral part of the Summit. The exhibition will showcase home-grown innovations on the continent. Dr. Olugbenga Adesida, Director of the AIS said: “it is heartwarming to see so many Africans engaged in trying to find solutions to the pressing challenges facing the continent. The hope which we have is to build the AIS into a platform that will support innovators, refine the ideas and scale them up across Africa and the World. Also important, we need all Africans, especially those with the power to act, to actively engage in building innovation driven societies in Africa”. Below are some of the AIS 2018 innovators:

Pidson Abaho, PedalTap, Uganda
James Dick, Food Security for Everyone, South Africa
Victor Shikoli, HYDROIQ, Kenya
Immanuel Hango, Chlorine Production Using Solar Energy, Namibia
Venuste Kubwimana, School Water Kiosks, Rwanda
Emmanuel Noah, BenBen, Ghana
Carlos dos Santos, IGRPWeb 1.0, Cape Verde
Jackline Kemigisa, Parliament Watch Uganda, Uganda
Chifungu Samazaka, Recyclebot, Zambia
Clement Mokoenene, Vehicle Energy Harvesting System (VEHS), South Africa
Bryan Mwangi, Pyro-Degrade Waste Management Solutions, Kenya
Simbarashe Mhuriro, Oxygen Energy Commercial Rooftop Solar Solutions, Zimbabwe
Tony Nyagah, Strauss Energy, Kenya
Ahmed Abbas, SunCity, Egypt
Zachary Mbuthia, Prosol Limited, Kenya
Zuko Mandlakazi Senso, South Africa
James Makumbi, The EpiTent, Uganda
Joan Nalubega, Union-Ganics (Uganics), Uganda
Dougbeh-Chris Nyan, The Nyan-Test, Liberia
Atef Ali, Sign Heroes, Egypt

To see a list of all the innovators, please click on link below

www.AfricaInnovationSummit.com/exhibitors

Applications were accepted in one of three categories; either idea stage, ready to commercialize (minimal viable product) or ready to scale. The focus is on innovators who are tackling the challenges in Water and Sanitation, Food Security and Agriculture, Healthcare, Governance and Energy. Over 600 innovation submissions were received from 44 African countries: including Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Gambia, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, Congo, Comoros, Mozambique, Lesotho and Namibia, to name a few, with the majority being submitted from Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Ghana and Tanzania.

AIS has partnered with Enterpriseroom, a transformation consultancy specializing in starting, sustaining, and accelerating enterprises, to drive the sourcing and selection process. Tracey Webster CEO of Enterpriseroom said “The evaluation process was extremely thorough, and we are grateful for the valuable support of a panel of 25 leading African experts from across all sectors and regions, who served as evaluators in the review process. We ensured that we had French speaking sector experts vetting the francophone countries to ensure that every application received an equal chance in the process.” Other key sponsors of the summit and Innovation Track include Government of Rwanda, Government of Cabo Verde, the European Union, Luxembourg, African Development Bank, Development Bank of Southern Africa, NEPAD, United Nations Development Programme and Accenture.

Kenya: President Kenyatta says the urban poor should benefit from the Equalisation Fund

President Uhuru Kenyatta has pitched for the inclusion of the urban poor so that they could benefit from the Equalisation Fund like other marginalised communities in the rural areas.

President Kenyatta was speaking on Monday at State House, Nairobi, when he received a report on the ‘Second Policy Identifying Marginalised Areas of Kenya and the Criteria for Sharing Revenue from the Equalisation Fund’.

The report was presented to the President by the Commission on Revenue Allocation (CRA), led by Chairperson Jane Kiringai.

The President said the urban poor – mainly those in informal settlements – lived in precarious conditions and also needed to be accorded equal consideration as other marginalised communities in the rural areas.

The Equalisation Fund seeks to provide services in accordance to what the communities identified as their priorities and which include health, education, infrastructure, energy and water.

The Commission said it would take on board the President’s concerns.

The Second Policy will be used to share revenue from the Equalisation Fund for period ending 2021.

While the first Marginalisation Policy focused on the identification of marginalised counties, the second policy shifts focus to marginalised areas.

To identify the marginalised areas, the Commission used an index of deprivation constructed using information on access to safe water, school attendance, access to improved sanitation and electricity.

The President commended the Commission for producing a good report on how to distribute financial resources to provide services to the poorest communities in accordance to their own priorities through public participation.

The CRA team recommended a comprehensive framework for engaging the beneficiary communities in the implementation of projects in the identified priority areas.

 

World Bank Group’s Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) Makes First $12 million Commitment

The World Bank Group’s Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility (PEF) today made its first-ever financial commitment, approving a $12 million grant towards the current Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The grant, approved today at an emergency meeting of the PEF Steering Body, will be made from the Cash Window of the PEF. It will support the surge in activities of the DRC Government and international responders outlined under the approved three-month $56.8 million Ebola response plan, released Monday by the DRC Government. As of today, there have been a total of 50 cases and 27 deaths from the current outbreak.

The PEF, an innovative financing mechanism set up by the World Bank Group in partnership with Japan, Germany, the World Health Organization (WHO), and private sector partners, has been operational since July 2017 and consists of both a cash and an insurance component.

“Today’s grant commitment from the PEF, along with strong Government, WBG and other partner support, enables us to focus entirely on the Ebola response and the health needs of our people at this challenging time, instead of on raising funds,” said Dr Oly Ilunga Kalenga, Minister of Health of DRC. “The challenges are steep but we are committed to pushing forward an effective and transparent response.”

“This historic first commitment from the PEF sends a strong message that we can act in a swift and bold manner against a serious infectious disease threat,” said Gerd Müller, German Minister for Economic Cooperation and Development. “This would not have been possible even a year ago.” The PEF’s Cash Window has been set up through an $61 million commitment from Germany.

“We always believed that the PEF offered a new model for financing pandemic response. That’s why we decided to support the PEF as the first international partner to contribute to the Insurance Window,” said Masatsugu Asakawa, Vice Minister of Finance for International Affairs, Ministry of Finance of Japan. “Today’s decision reinforces the importance of this mechanism.”

“This robust and timely grant from the PEF signals a major change in the way the global community approaches pandemics,” World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said. “It shows that we have learned some of the stark lessons of the deadly 2014 Ebola outbreak and are well on our way to stopping the cycle of panic and neglect. The PEF is built to have the speed and flexibility that’s needed to fight pandemics. Along with World Bank Group’s own financing, it is a critical part of our effort to ensure that money does not hold back effective pandemic response.”

In addition to the PEF, the World Bank Group also reallocated today the entire $15 million investment in disease surveillance in DRC, planned over three years, to the current Ebola response plan. This brings the total committed financing from the PEF and WBG to $27 million, ensuring that the Government’s three-month $56.8 million Ebola response plan is fully funded in 2 days by the government of DRC and international partners. This marks the first time that such a significant amount has been mobilized so rapidly in the context of a major disease outbreak. Additionally, The World Bank Group has also activated the use of the Contingent Emergency Response Component (CERC) of its DRC Heath System Project investment, which would allow the government access to an additional $80 million in IDA credits to respond to the outbreak, if needed.

In addition to the Cash Window activated today, the PEF also currently has a $425 million Insurance Window with premiums funded by Japan and Germany, consisting of bonds placed on the capital markets. This would be triggered if a much larger, multi-country response is needed. All activation criteria are based upon publicly available data provided by the WHO. The PEF covers 77 of the world’s poorest countries against pandemic threats and is the first mechanism to be expressly designed for this purpose.

Strong Clinical Research Capacity in At-Risk Countries Key to Global Epidemic Prevention

New report outlines urgent need and opportunities in low- and middle-income countries where disease outbreaks most often strike

Robust clinical research capacity in low- and middle-income countries is key to stemming the spread of epidemics, according to a new report from the International Vaccines Task Force (IVTF).

The report, entitled Money and Microbes: Strengthening Research Capacity to Prevent Epidemics, lays out how to develop the political support, financing and coordination required to build this capacity as a crucial component of global epidemic preparedness. The IVTF was convened by the World Bank Group (WBG) and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) in October 2017.

There have been many global and country-level efforts to strengthen pandemic preparedness and response since the deadly West African Ebola outbreak in 2014-2015 that killed 11,000 people—and the last few weeks have provided evidence of this.

During the current Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with 49 total cases and 26 deaths so far, the government of DRC has approved the use for trials starting this week of a new, as-yet unlicensed Ebola vaccine, the rVSV-ZEBOV. The vaccine has proven highly effective in a clinical trial conducted in Guinea in 2015. Nigeria had its worst Lassa Fever outbreak on record earlier this year, and also pushed forward with conducting clinical trials as the outbreak unfolded.

“Times of crisis present the opportunity to focus capabilities and energy on solving important problems,” said Marie-Paule Kieny, Director of Research at INSERM and co-chair of IVTF. “Robust clinical research capacity is the only way to ensure that we don’t face future outbreaks with the same knowledge gaps over and over again.”

Of the 96 countries that have conducted vaccine trials in the past 20 years, 56 have conducted only between 1 and 10 trials, according to a registry maintained by the World Health Organization (WHO). This is insufficient to advance promising new vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics for epidemic infectious diseases at the scale that is needed. The report recommends building capacity at a national or regional level that can flexibly scale up to run clinical trials during outbreaks, and focus on ongoing high-priority disease research based on local needs in between outbreaks.

“There are now more robustly trained local researchers working in better equipped facilities in low- and middle-income countries, but their numbers remain far too limited,” said Richard Sezibera, Member of the Senate, Rwanda, and Co-chair of the IVTF. “We must urgently prioritize clinical research both to save lives in low-income settings, and to generate valuable information that is a global public good.”

Besides improving health outcomes, clinical research offers a strong return on investment—publicly-funded research and innovation delivers about a 20 percent annual return on investment, compared with an average of 6.8 percent for the S&P 500, which includes the 500 largest companies listed on the U.S. stock market, according to Science Business.

“Investment in strong clinical research capability is a win-win, paying for itself many times over,” said Tim Evans, Senior Director and head of the Health, Nutrition and Population Global Practice at the World Bank Group. “It saves lives and improves health, drives innovation, and creates high-quality jobs, and also builds global health security from the ground up, making us all safer.”

The IVTF recommends that low- and middle-income countries commit domestic financing to this agenda, building political support and a research-friendly culture. It recommends that WHO develops a global tool and robust indicators for assessing country research capacity, and that the WBG creates an investment framework for national and regional clinical research capacity, using many of its unique financing mechanisms to link clinical research to its overall investments in pandemic preparedness. IVTF also recommends strong private sector engagement through transfer of skills and expertise as well as financing.

“Closing the clinical research gap is essential to ensure that we have the capacity that can be mobilized quickly and effectively whenever and wherever it is needed during outbreaks,” said Richard Hatchett, CEO of CEPI. “Without this, we will not be better prepared for and able to response to current and future epidemic threats.”

Facebook Launches first Hub Space in Africa

As part of its commitment and ongoing investment in Africa, Facebook (www.Facebook.com) today unveiled NG_Hub in Lagos, Nigeria – its first flagship community hub space in Africa, in partnership with CcHub.

In a week-long celebration which will bring together developers, start-ups, and the wider tech community across Lagos and Nigeria, the launch will showcase the new multi-faceted space which aims to bring together communities to collaborate, learn, and exchange ideas.

With creativity and excellence existing across all of Nigeria, Facebook also announced partnerships with seven other hubs across the country including in Abuja (Ventures Platform), Jos (nHub), Kaduna (Colab Hub), Kano (DI Hub), Uyo (Start Innovation Hub), Enugu (Roar Hub) and Port Harcourt (Ken Saro Wiwa Hub).

These will serve as centres of excellence and will feature dedicated Facebook spaces, where many of Facebook’s training sessions will take place, and a space where creatives and developers can book to help them advance their skills.

Featuring bespoke works of art from local artists in Nigeria, the NG_Hub space, which includes workspaces, meeting rooms, games and chill out room, an event space and a well catered café, will also be the focal point for a number of training programmes. Aimed at attracting the best talent and driving innovation in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem, these are all designed to equip Nigerian SMEs, tech entrepreneurs and the next generation of leaders to better understand and utilise the power of digital tools for economic growth. Training programmes include:

• The Fb Start Accelerator programme – a research and mentorship-driven programme (https://goo.gl/qV831p) aimed at empowering start-ups and students with technical & business support and funding to optimize their product for growth – focused on those building solutions using advanced technology, with a focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR).
• Digify Pro Nigeria – a two-month intensive boot camp  (https://goo.gl/CQ7Z7P) where 20 aspiring digital professionals will learn what it takes to have a career in digital marketing. The programme is designed to fit the specific needs of industry, covering a range of topics including community management, content and e-mail marketing, brand online reputation management, UX design and more.
• Boost Your Business – Made especially for micro, small and medium sized businesses owners, Boost Your Business is a one-day training that teaches digital marketing for business growth.
•  #SheMeansBusiness – the first to launch on the continent, #SheMeansBusiness (https://goo.gl/jNR6BW) is a one-day training workshop and networking experience for female entrepreneurs, offering a mix of business and digital marketing training for women led businesses, along with additional opportunities to network with fellow female entrepreneurs.

Ime Archibong, Facebook’s Vice President of Partnerships said: “Technology provides expansive opportunities to engage young, creative and resourceful Nigerians, especially in delivering solutions to challenges across communities here in Nigeria. Our mission is to build community and bring the world closer together, NG_Hub provides that physical space that will serve as a centre of learning and skills development in Lagos, and I’m excited about the possibilities that this will create.”

Commenting on the partnership Bosun Tijani, Founder/CEO of CcHub, added: “Our aim has always been to provide a viable platform for creatives and innovators to express their talent and create solutions to the myriad of social and economic challenges faced by countries across the continent. Partnering with Facebook on NG_Hub enables us to achieve our objectives at scale and make the desired impact in the tech ecosystem here in Lagos.”

As part of a week-long of celebrations, Facebook will host a number of events from May 21 – 25, 2018 aimed at engaging the different communities in Lagos, and across Nigeria. This includes:

• Community roundtable – aimed at bringing together Community Groups from across Lagos
• DevC meetup – with Nigeria being home to the largest number of Developer Circles across Sub-Saharan Africa (over 8,800), this event will bring together DevC members in an afternoon of networking
• VC & Policy Roundtable – aimed at spearheading vital conversations and helping to bridge the gap between tech entrepreneurs and VCs and policy makers in Nigeria
• She Means Business/Women in Tech – a special SheMeansBusiness training offered especially for female entrepreneurs working in Lagos’ technology ecosystem
• SMB Boost Your Business Training – a four-hour training session for SMBs aimed at equipping them with vital digital skills to help grow their businesses
• Facebook and Instagram for Creatives – an inspirational hands-on session led by Creative Shop for Creatives building for Facebook and Instagram
• Fintech SMB Training –  a training session for SMBs in Fintech

“The NG_Hub highlights our ongoing commitment to supporting local talent in Nigeria. We’re delighted to be partnering with CcHub here in Lagos, as well as with many other hubs across Nigeria to deepen our engagement, increase skills development and support the next set of innovators, tech entrepreneurs, start-ups, and others in our collective bid to change the face of technology and grow the economy,” said Ebele Okobi, Director of Public Policy, Africa.

Women with pregnancy-related diabetes may be at risk for chronic kidney disease

Gestational diabetes may predispose women to early-stage kidney damage, a precursor to chronic kidney disease, according to a study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. The study appears in Diabetes Care.

Gestational diabetes occurs only in pregnancy and results when the level of blood sugar is too high. The condition increases the risk for preterm birth and cesarean delivery, among other complications. Other forms of diabetes that occur outside of pregnancy are known to increase the risk for chronic kidney disease, in which the kidneys have difficulty filtering wastes from the blood. Few studies have investigated the potential link between gestational diabetes and chronic kidney disease.

“Our findings suggest that women who have had gestational diabetes may benefit from periodic checkups to detect early-stage kidney damage and receive subsequent treatment,” said the study’s senior author, Cuilin Zhang, M.D., M.P.H., Ph.D., of the Epidemiology Branch at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

The researchers found that women who had gestational diabetes were more likely to have a high glomerular filtration rate (GFR), an estimate of how much blood per minute passes through the glomeruli, the tiny filters within kidneys that extract waste from the blood. Many researchers think that a very high GFR(link is external) can precede the early kidney damage that accompanies pre-diabetes — higher than normal blood sugar levels that are not high enough to be classified as diabetes.

The work was conducted as part of the NICHD-funded Diabetes & Women’s Health Study.  Researchers collected blood and urine samples and analyzed data from Danish women who had pregnancies from 1996 through 2002. The data included results from tests for diabetes and kidney functioning an average of 13 years later. Of this group, 601 women had gestational diabetes and 613 did not. Women who had gestational diabetes and later developed diabetes were approximately nine times more likely to have an elevated GFR later in life, compared to women who did not have gestational diabetes. Women who only had gestational diabetes had more than triple the risk of an elevated GFR. The results for the latter group remained consistent even after researchers statistically ruled out other factors that might influence kidney function, such as obesity, blood pressure disorders of pregnancy and the use of certain medications.

Women who had gestational diabetes and later-life diabetes were also more likely to have an elevated urinary albumin to creatinine ratio (UACR), an indication of kidney disease. Women who had only gestational diabetes were not at increased risk for an elevated UACR.

The study could not prove that gestational diabetes causes kidney damage, and the authors noted that more research is needed to confirm their findings.

NICHD conducts and supports research in the United States and throughout the world on fetal, infant and child development; maternal, child and family health; reproductive biology and population issues; and medical rehabilitation. For more information, visit http://www.nichd.nih.gov.

NIH, the nation’s medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov.

African Development Bank and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) join forces to accelerate Africa’s industrialization

Collaboration has also been initiated for the establishment of staple crop processing zones in a select number of African countries

The African Development Bank (AfDB) (www.AFDB.org) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) (www.UNIDO.org) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Monday, May 21 to step up collaboration to boost Africa’s industrialization.

“The Bank launched in 2016 its Industrialization Strategy for Africa 2016-2025, which was the outcome of collaborative work with UNIDO and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. The signing of the present MoU is key to our Strategy’s implementation,” said African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina. “The Bank already benefits enormously from UNIDO’s expertise in developing policies, programmes and knowledge tools which supports our member countries to industrialize.” In 2017, the Bank allocated US $1.2 billion to Industrialize Africa – one of the Bank’s High 5 development priorities – mostly to projects for financial sector operations.

The new agreement facilitates the Bank and UNIDO cooperation on joint activities of shared interest in areas such as agro-industry development, circular economy, eco-industrial parks, investment in innovation and technology, enterprise development, trade and capacity-building, and access to finance, among others. The MoU is in line with objectives set in the Bank’s High 5 strategy, the African Union’s Agenda 2063, the Third Industrial Development Decade for Africa (IDDA III), the UN’s Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as the G20 Initiative on Supporting Industrialization in Africa.

“Achieving Africa’s industrial potential will not happen by chance; strong partnerships such as the one our two organizations have now formalized are key,” said Philippe Scholtès, Managing Director at UNIDO. “This partnership will create significant opportunities and facilitate our work together towards the operationalization of IDDA III (2016–2025)”.

The two entities have already initiated working level collaboration including within the framework of UNIDO’s flagship Programme for Country Partnership (PCP) model, which helps synchronize development efforts and mobilize resources to support countries in accelerating industrialization. The Bank and UNIDO recently undertook a joint mission to Morocco as part of the initial development of the PCP and will continue exploring cooperation opportunities in the ongoing PCPs in Senegal and Ethiopia. Collaboration has also been initiated for the establishment of staple crop processing zones in a select number of African countries.

The Memorandum was signed by Adesina and Scholtès in Busan, Republic of Korea, on the sidelines of the Annual Meetings of the Boards of Governors of the African Development Bank Group, held under the theme of “Accelerating Africa’s industrialization.” The signing ceremony was attended by African Industry Ministers, representatives of regional Member States, development partners and private-sector executives.

The African Development Bank Group (AfDB) (www.AfDB.org) is Africa’s premier development finance institution. It comprises three distinct entities: the African Development Bank (AfDB), the African Development Fund (ADF) and the Nigeria Trust Fund (NTF). On the ground in 44 African countries with an external office in Japan, the AfDB contributes to the economic development and the social progress of its 54 regional member states.