Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE Human Development Innovation Fund (HDIF) has made remarkable contribution towards building the innovation ecosystem in Tanzania in the past seven years, through provision of financial and technical support to several projects, start ups and hubs.
This was revealed recently by HDIF Country Director, Joseph Manirakiza during the opening of the Innovation Week Tanzania which commenced in Dar es Salaam this week with the theme “Innovation for a resilient and inclusive digital economy.”
Mr Manirakiza noted that the current phase of the programme funded by DFID is coming to an end in July this year.
He said during its seven years’ existence, HDIF focused on three key areas, including providing financial and technical support to innovative projects in Health, Education and WASH.
Mr Manirakiza added that other areas are catalyzing the Tanzanian innovation ecosystem, and contributing to the improvement in innovation enabling environment through sharing, learning, convening and engagements with key stakeholders.
“The programme provided financial and technical support in form of competitive grants to 48 projects, but also supported over 55 start-ups and hubs, either through various challenges and competitions, or through the Commission for Science and Technology (COSTECH),” he said.
He pointed out that HDIF has been working closely with the government through COSTECH and sometimes directly with the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology to institute a number of learning sessions in order to exchange experience and knowledge.
He further said that his organization has supported COSTECH in strengthening National Fund for Advancement of Science and Technology (NFAST) in order to serve innovators in addition to researchers that they had been funding for a long time and instituted the Innovation Week Tanzania.
The Innovation Week has now been declared by the Prime Minister as an annual occurrence, where he instructed the ministry to take it to the district level.
He, however, said that the Tanzanian innovation ecosystem still needs adequate financing, capacity building, and work still needs to be done in making the policy environment more enabling and conducive to innovators and start-ups.
Meanwhile, as the HDIF programme is coming to an end, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has come up with a new innovation ecosystem support programme to support Tanzania innovation startups.
The programme worth US dollars 11.5 million dubbed “Ufunguo” Unlocking Innovation, investment and impact was launched recently in Dar es Salaam.
UNDP Resident Representative, Ms Christine Musisi said that the programme signals a continuation of development partners support to the Tanzania innovation ecosystem.
She added that the programme will also provide technical assistance to businesses through contracting services already provided by hubs and other business development service providers in the country.
