West Africa Announces National Innovators

February 24, 2022 was a glorious day for West Africa RIH’s Ivory Coast Call for Innovations, as the official award ceremony for the four water-energy-food winners of the National Call for Innovations was held at the Hotel Rose Blanche in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. 

From the 18 applications submitted at the beginning of the call, four winners were selected:  
  • AD SOLAR in the category of “Hydric Solution” 
  • Lono in the category of “Energy Solution”
  • Grainothèque in the category of “Digital Solution”  
  • Green Agro Valley in the category of “Innovative Solution for Agricultural Production”
The call will: 
  • support the development of sustainable, water- and/or energy-efficient innovations and approaches 
  • support the ability of companies to sell their technologies to markets of different sizes 
  • create jobs through renewable energy 
  • save water and to increase food security

The ceremony marked the beginning of a promising collaboration between the four innovative enterprises and WE4F. The next step is to start the acceleration program and provide the enterprises with technical and financial support to enable their scale up. 

Thirty participants attended the award ceremony and came from various levels and sectors: the Ministry of State, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MEMINADER), the Delegation of the European Union in Côte d’Ivoire (EU), GFA Consulting Group GmbH, several GIZ projects in Ivory Coast as well as WE4F partners, Africa Foodies industries, the NGO 350 Côte d’Ivoire and Agri’Ub. Finally, there were the members of the jury, the press, and of course, the winners. 

Watch an extract from the ceremony that was recently broadcast on the Côte d’Ivoire news here: 
We thank all participants for coming and congratulate the winners once again on their great achievements!

Contact Person:

Yannick Aka, West Africa  Regional Innovation Hub, Advisor for Communication and M&E

Yannick holds a Master’s degree in English with a major in American Civilization at the University of Bouaké and worked for various NGOs in Côte d’Ivoire before joining the WE4F team.

Contact: yannick.aka@giz.de