An event to celebrate FID's growth

"This is a major milestone for FID, as we have completed our first three years of operations and are now entering a new 4 year-long cycle" Juliette Seban, FID's Executive Director, pointed out during her opening speech at the "Innovation et impact : trajectoire 2024-2027" event held on February 8.

This event marked the renewal of FID's agreement with the French Development Agency (AFD) and the French government. This new agreement formalizes a significant increase in FID's budget, bringing it to a total of €100 million for the 2024-2027 period, and thus reflecting the French government's growing support for this innovative funding mechanism.

" Innovation is essential in the fight against poverty. FID's strength lies in its innovative approach, which allows room for mistakes but remains scientifically rigorous. ", commented the Director of the French Treasury Bertrand Dumont during the signing of the agreement alongside FID’s directors, the Director of Globalisation at the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs Aurélien Lechevallier and Marie-Hélène Loison, the Deputy Director of the French Development Agency (AFD).

“We really appreciated the quality of the projects funded by FID during its first phase, both in terms of creativity and relevance," added Aurélien Lechevallier. He emphasized on the pilot and innovative aspects of FID, which fosters an innovation and impact driven mindset in the French international cooperation policy.

Esther Duflo, the President of FID's Board of Directors, stated in her opening speech that this budget increase would "boost the momentum" of the fund, which is currently funding 66 projects across 25 countries, mostly located on the African continent. She emphasized on the fund's relevance: "When it comes to dealing with widespread social challenges, such as children's learning difficulties at school, innovation is a common good."

The event was held to highlight the work of project teams supported by FID.

Drone technology to accelerate mangrove restoration in Ghana

Eric Lartey, the Deputy Director of Friends of the Earth Ghana presented a project that is testing the effectiveness of modern drone technology in mangrove restoration and comparing it to other conventional methods: “We sought ways of restoring mangroves that are faster than conventional methods: drone technology not only reduces the cost of our approach, but also accelerates it".

Identifying lead levels in paint used in houses of Côte d'Ivoire to fight against malaria

One of the main development issues discussed at this round table was the harmful lead contamination found in the paints used on a daily basis in Côte d'Ivoire. To minimize the exposure of pregnant women and young children to lead toxicity in households of Abidjan, a consortium led by the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) and the Institute of Statistics and Applied Economics of Abidjan (ENSEA) designed a research protocol allowing families to test their own environment with easy-to-use kits that identify the presence of lead in their homes.

According to Hugues Kouadio, Director of ENSEA in Abidjan, "Most African countries have been addressing the issue of lead levels in paint since 2015, and have undertaken a global plan to standardize lead levels in paint at public level. This is an issue that affects several countries".

Their initial results demonstrate the importance of conducting this project study: "Unfortunately, the preliminary results of our project seem to suggest that the quantities of lead found in children's blood are well above the standards set by the WHO, and therefore could potentially be a major public health problem", pointed out Flore Gubert, Economist and Senior Researcher at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD).

Developing effective pre-school education programs in Morocco

Nisrine Ibn Abdeljalil, the General Director of the Moroccan Foundation for the Promotion of PreSchool Education (FMPS) and Estelle Plat, the Director for West and North Africa of IDinsight, had a discussion around a project aimed at setting up a monitoring and evaluation system to improve the quality of pre-school education: " The long-standing collaboration between the FMPS and the research center of IDinsight has enabled us to build an in-house evaluation team and raise awareness on the importance of data in the implementation of public education policies. Our challenge is to make the best use of the data we have collected so far to make decisions within the FMPS".

The mission of the Anansi program overcoming mental health barriers in Kenya

Tom Osborn, Co-Founder and CEO of the Shamiri Institute, explained: “ We came up with a new model based on very simple ideas: we are training 18 to 22 year olds as lay therapists and to lead a very simple type of intervention, as research showed that simple interventions (that foster growth mindsets, a sense of belonging and gratitude) could have an impact on the outcomes of affected young people ”.

This project aims to tackle a public health issue which hinders young people’s access to employment and training, especially considering the fact that there is only one mental health specialist for every million citizens in Kenya.

FID's key figures for 2021-2023