How To Apply for 2020 UNDP/The GovLab Multi-City Challenge Africa

The Multi-City Challenge Africa aims to solve complex urban problems in collaboration with the people most affected by these problems: the residents of the city.

The programme offers training to public officials of the participating cities to support them in defining challenges and solving them in collaboration with their residents. It offers the community a space to participate in the design and formulation of public policies and programmes at the local level, allowing them to provide their innovative ideas to overcome these challenges.

The Challenges

The participating cities, Accra, Bahir Dar, Kampala, Kano, and Mutare, have defined three shared challenges to solve together with their communities. 

• Reducing waste generation and improving waste management – Accra, Bahir Dar, and Kano. 
• Building urban resilience in slums and informal settlements – Accra, Kampala, Kano, and Mutare.
• Integrating the informal economy – Accra, Kampala, and Mutare.

Eligibility

• Individuals or organisations interested in working to improve the urban context of the participating cities and, therefore, the quality of life of the residents, can participate regardless of their place of residence. However, they especially invite the residents of the five participating cities to submit ideas and to evaluate solutions proposed by others. 
• Individuals who are relatives of the members of the city teams (see members in the profile of each city) or of the Multi City Challenge team are excluded from participating in the challenge.

Evaluation Criteria

• Public evaluation: Ideas will be evaluated by the public using two criteria: Impact and Practicality. The public will be asked to evaluate whether your idea, if implemented, is likely to improve the problem (impact) and if your idea can be accomplished quickly (practicality). The public rating and ranking will lead to the shortlisting of the top 20 proposals in each challenge.
• Experts evaluation: The top 20 rated ideas by the public will be evaluated by a panel of independent experts, comprising city officials, UNDP and GovLab experts. In evaluating ideas, judges will evaluate these ideas based on five criteria:
  • Is the solution responsive to the specific challenge/problem?
  • Is the solution likely to solve that challenge/problem?
  • Is there evidence to support the solution?
  • Is the solution feasible?
  • Can it be implemented in under one year?

How To Apply

Participation is divided in two steps:

• Step 1 (November 4 – December 13): Posting an idea to address one of the above three challenges in a city (maximum one idea per challenge per participant).
• Step 2 (December 14 – December 23): Evaluating the ideas that you consider most 1) impactful, and 2) practical.

Click Here To Begin Your Application

For more information, visit Multi-City Challenge Africa

Application Deadline: December 13, 2020