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The Global Resilience Partnership and the Zurich Insurance Group have announced the commencement of the Global Resilience Challenge Water Window, an initiative aimed at providing flood management solutions to help people who live in flood-prone communities across the Sahel, the Horn of Africa, and South and Southeast Asia.

The Global Resilience Partnership, a public-private initiative comprising The Rockefeller Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), launched the first Global Resilience Challenge in September 2014, which was focused on addressing issues that threaten the lives and livelihoods of the most vulnerable populations in countries including Bangladesh, India, Kenya, Mali, Nepal, Niger, Philippines and Uganda.

For the Water Window, the Global Resilience Partnership is requesting for submissions of Concept Notes with innovative ideas and solutions that will help build resilience to different water challenges in the various regions that are prone to floods. The Concept Notes must be submitted between March 29 and May 8, 2016. Finalists will be announced at the end of August 2016 and invited to submit a detailed proposal. They will also receive mentoring from Global Resilience Partnership technical experts to refine their proposals.

The challenge is a $10 million programme funded by the Z Zurich Foundation, as part of its investment in a global flood resilience programme. The programme is set up to fund teams of social entrepreneurs, community-based organizations, research, academic institutions, international non-profit organizations and private sector organizations.

According to a statement released on Tuesday by the organisers of the challenge, the number of people impacted by river floods alone could nearly triple to 54 million globally by 2030.

Proposals for the challenge are to focus on innovative solutions to real problems and demonstrate a basic understanding of the drivers of community resilience to floods; an understanding of the economic, environmental, social and technical aspects of flood risk reduction, management and recovery, and how flood resilience can truly be achieved without hampering other resilience or capabilities. The full requirements can be found at www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/waterwindow.

“Changing demographics and climate trends mean we need new ideas and approaches to help countries and communities prepare for, adapt to, and recover in the face of chronic shocks and stresses,” Luca Alinovi, Executive Director at Global Resilience Partnership, said. “We are incredibly excited to see what innovative solutions the flood pillar of the Water Window will reveal. We are expecting applicants from fields as diverse as meteorology, infrastructure design and finance. We know that each of them will be looking at seemingly unsolvable problems in new ways and from multiple perspectives - local, regional, and global.”

Successful submissions for the Global Resilience Challenge Water Window will be eligible for up to $1 million scaling-up grants or up to $250,000 seed grants.