SOUTH AFRICA- The United Nations Population Fund East and Southern Africa (UNFPA-ESARO), has reasserted its support for the new 2023 Hacklab to build on the success of the 2021 and 2022 editions.
The new edition, We Scale Hacklabs, will present new opportunities to exemplify and support impactful solutions in East and Southern Africa to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and other harmful practices against girls and women.
UNFPA notes the immense potential of UNFPA East and Southern Africa Regional Office’s FGM Hacklab and its ability to spur real change on the issue in the region through Africa-led solutions and innovations.
Using the previous two editions of the program to assert the success of the program and catalyze more support for the new 2023 Hacklab edition.
The previous editions saw 300 ground-breaking, innovative solutions presented and over US$150,000 in seed funding and targeted enterprise growth support.
Currently, UNFPA-ESARO is working towards transforming these solutions into real-world accelerators of the UNFPA Transformative Results.
The innovators in previous editions have presented solutions to improve maternal health, promote access to family planning, eliminate harmful practices, and advance the rights and well-being of individuals, especially women, and girls.
The new edition will receive support from the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on the Elimination of FGM and the Spotlight Initiative regional program in Africa.
The Spotlight Initiative Africa Regional Programme is a global partnership between the United Nations, the European Union, and the African Union.
The program has an overarching continental scope that enhances a regional approach to end violence against women and girls, sexual and gender-based violence, and harmful practices, as well as strengthening sexual and reproductive health and rights.
More innovations, more impact
The 2023 We Scale Hacklab aims to take this progress to new heights, whereby their primary objective is to provide additional capacity strengthening (technical and financial) to a network of innovators and innovation hubs that have been engaged in the previous years’ Hacklabs.
The program partners will also mobilize support within the innovation ecosystem, enabling innovators to lead the movement advocating for individuals’ right to make decisions about their own bodies.
The Hacklabs 3rd edition will also provide digital tools, such as the social innovation toolkit, to accelerate business growth, as well as evaluate and communicate the impact of the innovative solutions implemented.
Additionally, it will also identify and engage a network of innovation enablers to provide sustained support to innovators.
The We Scale Hacklab will engage innovators selected from among the final pitch event cohorts of the 2021 and 2022 Hacklabs, who have demonstrated a continued commitment to growing and developing their innovative solutions.
Through an evaluation process, the innovators will receive additional training in scaling up and engaging with markets and stakeholders from AfriLabs – UNFPA ESARO’s business incubation partner and will present their scale-up plans to an expert panel.
Two solutions will be selected as winners and granted additional scale funding of US$15,000 to expand their impact.
Additionally, the innovators will benefit from business scale support, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and gender program design technical assistance, connections to UNFPA country offices, and mentoring support.
A world without FGM
The UNFPA-UNICEF global Joint Programme on the Elimination of FGM has supported over 3,000 initiatives since its inception in 2008 and has become the largest program on the issue of FGM, globally.
The program works to eliminate FGM through interventions in 17 countries where the practice is prevalent.
The program creates opportunities for girls and women to realize their rights in health, education, income, and equality to help end the power imbalances that underpin this harmful practice.
UNFPA-ESARO insists that a zero-tolerance approach must be applied to end FGM by 2030 as this year alone 4.3 million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation.
This number is projected to reach 4.6 million by 2030, as conflict, climate change, rising poverty, and inequality continue to hinder efforts to transform gender and social norms that underpin this harmful practice and disrupt programs that help protect girls.
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