Grand Challenges Canada, with funding from the Government of Canada, is increasing its investments in 14 health and international development projects. Our support allows innovators to adapt their product to also provide novel, affordable and locally sourced resources, ideas and solutions to acquire critical COVID-19 supplies and services for low-resource countries during the global pandemic.
Together with this supplementary funding, the 14 innovations will have received total Grand Challenges Canada support of $12.9 million.
This round of supplementary funding is focused largely on bolstering infection control and prevention while ensuring continuity of reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health care.
Experts predict a secondary health crisis if effects on access to essential to primary care are not mitigated during COVID-19, with particularly devastating consequences for women and girls. The United Nations Population Fund suggests that six months of COVID-19-related disruptions to health services could leave 47 million women in 114 low- and middle-income countries without access to contraception. As well, modelling by public health researchers at Johns Hopkins University suggests that pandemic-related disruptions in access to primary care could also result in over 1 million additional child deaths and nearly 60,000 additional maternal deaths in low- and middle-income countries over 6 months.
Read the news release about how five of these Grand Challenges Canada innovators are using supplemental funding to maintain essential primary care here.
Innovator: Afya Research Africa / Ubuntu Health Ltd.
GCC-Funded Innovation: Ubuntu-Afya Kiosk Network: Community Co-Ownership for Quality Care in Rural Kenya
Project Location: Kenya
Innovator: Development Data
GCC-Funded Innovation: MAMaZ Against Malaria At Scale
Project Location: Zambia
Innovator: The equality effect
GCC-Funded Innovation: 160 Girls Police Enablement Project
Project Location: Kenya
Innovator: Friendship
GCC-Funded Innovation: Comprehensive Maternal, Newborn and Child Health and Sexual and Reproductive Health in Particularly Remote Areas
Project Location: Bangladesh
Innovator: Healthy Entrepreneurs Uganda
GCC-Funded Innovation: Sustainable Health Networks for Last-Mile Women and Children
Project Location: Uganda
Innovator: Jacaranda Health Solutions Limited
GCC-Funded Innovation: Innovative Public-Private Model to Improve Maternal and Newborn Outcomes in Kenya’s Public Sector
Project Location: Kenya
Innovator: LifeNet Malawi
GCC-Funded Innovation: Scaling Integrated Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn and Child Care and Bolstering Family Planning Services in Faith-Based Facilities
Project Location: Burundi
Innovator: Max Foundation
GCC-Funded Innovation: Max Healthy Village: Tackling Stunting for Children Under 5 Through Improved WASH, Nutrition and Care
Project Location: Bangladesh
Innovator: Muso / Université des Sciences, des Techniques et des Technologies de Bamako
GCC-Funded Innovation: Scaling Health Systems Innovation: Proactive Community Case Management
Project Location: Mali
Innovator: North Star Alliance East Africa
GCC-Funded Innovation: Combating Sexual and Gender-Based Violence Against Female Sex Workers in sub-Saharan Africa
Project Location: Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Zimbabwe
Innovator: SaCoDé
GCC-Funded Innovation: Agateka Menstrual Pads
Project Location: Burundi
Innovator: Stichting Pharmaccess International
GCC-Funded Innovation: SafeCare
Project Location: Kenya
Innovator: Triggerise Stichting
GCC-Funded Innovation: Using Platforms to Improve Sexual, Reproductive and Maternal Health Outcomes in India
Project Location: India
Innovator: Young 1ove
GCC-Funded Innovation: Yes She Can: Enabling Young Girls to Make Safer Sexual Choices Using an Innovative, Evidence-Based, Scalable Intervention
Project Location: Botswana
