Call for Applications: 2013 SEED Awards seek innovative projects on gender equality and women’s empowerment

Date: Tuesday, 16 April 2013

2013 SEED Awards Applications Now Open

New York, 16 April 2013 –UN Women joins the European Union, the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, the government of Flanders, the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), and the international law firm Hogan Lovells in supporting the SEED Award, an initiative that aims to help the most promising start-up entrepreneurs, women-led enterprises and other social and environmental inspiring businesses to integrate ideas and proposals to address pressing local issues.

Innovators and entrepreneurs from emerging economies, developing and least developed countries can send their applications to win a tailor-made support package to help expand their business, as part of the 2013 SEED Awards, which opens today.

The award includes expert advice on developing their business plans for the winners, as well as their participation in specially-designed workshops to enhance their skills, and benefit from high-level profiling of their enterprises through an international network of businesses, governments and development institutions.

For the 2013 cycle, SEED will make available up to two SEED Gender Equality Awards, supported by UN Women. To check country eligibility for the Gender Equality Awards use the SEEDS country eligibility check.

To be eligible to apply for the SEED Gender Equality Award, the enterprises need to:

Demonstrate entrepreneurship and innovation.
Deliver economic, social and environmental benefits.
Show the intention and potential to become financially sustainable.
Be a partnership between different stakeholder groups.
Be locally driven or locally led.
Demonstrate that it has the potential for scale up or significant replication.
Be in the early stages of implementation.
Be from a country with a developing or emerging economy.
Be run or owned by a woman or women and prioritise gender equality and/or women’s empowerment as a core objective.

Detailed eligibility criteria are available at www.seedinit.org, along with details of previous Award Winners.

Applications can be filled in online at the SEED Initiative website www.seedinit.org or can be downloaded and emailed to seedawards2013[at]seedinit.org. Applicants may also contact the SEED Initiative by email or phone (+49 30 89 00 068 99) in case they are not able to submit their application electronically.

The deadline for applications is Wednesday, 12 June, 2013, 23:59 Central European Time (CET).