Investing in Social Innovation and Technology in Tanzania

Investing in Social Innovation and Technology in Tanzania • CUSTOMISING APPROACHES TO ENABLE INNOVATIONS
Young innovators build
a wheelchair during a
design hackathon at
Innovation Week, 2018.
HDIF
HDIF’s performance targets were set high and
annually adjusted through an open, two-way (clientto-implementer)
review process, and independently
evaluated through the programme’s annual review.
The type of risk profile established for the project
required a high degree of accountability to identify
and correct problems as early as possible. The project
aimed to meet the need for data on impact, finances,
and contract compliance without overburdening
innovators with distracting, time-consuming reporting
requirements that are not directly related to their dayto-day
implementation and adaptation of the model.
In this way, the project sought due diligence as a
path towards risk awareness, strategic risk-taking, and
reasonable risk mitigation as opposed to risk aversion
and avoidance.
2.1.4 Provide dedicated relationship
management and related resources and
ensure support is appropriate, accepted,
and translates into results
To provide stage-sensitive, targeted technical
assistance, HDIF designed a team that, itself, learned
and adapted the skills required to support grantees
and the ecosystem. It began with a core team of
generalists to ensure the key transactional work was
taken care of, complemented by select technical
partners to drive grantees further towards their
potential impact.
As the project adapted, the role of partners and
how they engaged the ecosystem and grantees
also changed. The original Challenge Fund design
included a very broad role for KPMG – managing
the operations of the fund from solicitation of ideas
through to award, assessing the business viability of
grant applications, and building general business
skills among the grantees. The academic partners,
the Water, Engineering and Development Centre
(WEDC) at Loughborough University and Newcastle
University, had a more refined role related to
evaluating applications, advising on business plans
and the technical aspects of grantees’ interventions.
As the programme leapt from the landscape analysis
phase during inception to implementation, KPMG's
role was revised to the provision of advisory support
around risk management on business processes.
Meanwhile, the academic partners took up a more
substantive role in HDIF’s learning strategy, capturing
27