Grand Challenges for Development

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Grand Challenges for Development mobilize governments, companies, and foundations around important issues. Through these programs, USAID and public and private partners bring in new voices to solve development problems. They source new solutions, test new ideas, and scale what works.

All Grand Challenges offer challenge grants, but many use additional tools depending on the problem they intend to solve. These can include prizes, hack-a-thons, capacity-building services, and more.

Together, the Grand Challenges partners have committed more than $508 million in grants and technical assistance to fund more than 450 innovations in 60 countries. Partners also help innovators attract customers, partners, and investors and get the support they need to grow.

Since 2011, USAID and its partners have launched ten Grand Challenges (listed chronologically):


SAVING LIVES AT BIRTH supports prevention, intervention and treatment approaches for pregnant women and newborns in poor, hard-to-reach communities around the time of delivery.


ALL CHILDREN READING supports technology-enabled, cost-effective innovations to improve reading skills for children in early grades.


POWERING AGRICULTURE supports new ways to bring clean energy to farmers, helping them grow more high-quality food for their communities.


MAKING ALL VOICES COUNT supports people and governments to use innovation, web and mobile technologies to improve government performance and accountability.


SECURING WATER FOR FOOD supports scientific and technological innovations to produce more food with less water in developing countries.


FIGHTING EBOLA was established to help healthcare workers on the front lines of the Ebola epidemic provide better care and stop the spread of the disease.


COMBATING ZIKA AND FUTURE THREATS is working to stop the spread of Zika and prevent other infectious disease outbreaks.


SCALING OFF-GRID ENERGY is working to provide 20 million households in sub-Saharan Africa with access to modern, clean, and affordable electricity.


ENSURING EFFECTIVE HEALTH SUPPLY CHAINS is a call for innovative and transformative solutions to build more effective supply chains in low- and middle-income countries around the world.


Creating Hope in Conflict will identify and support groundbreaking solutions that engage the private sector and draw from the experiences of affected communities in order to significantly improve - and in many cases, save - the lives of vulnerable people affected by conflict


Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) aims to scale groundbreaking water-energy-food innovations to impact food security, gender, and poverty reduction in an environmentally-sustainable way.

To learn more about Grand Challenges for Development, please contact challenges@usaid.gov.

Last updated: January 29, 2020

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