Case Study: Lessons of Challenge Funds for resilience building

This case study by the Global Resilience Partnership (GRP) examines the effectiveness of Challenge Funds (CF) in building resilience. It synthesizes lessons from GRP's own 'Global Resilience Challenge' and 'Water Window Challenge' alongside a literature review of various international funds. The document provides a framework for the four stages of a Challenge Fund—design, selection, implementation, and scaling—and offers specific recommendations to improve the delivery of resilience outcomes, emphasizing the need for flexibility, local partnership, and long-term scaling strategies.

• Challenge Funds are distinguished from traditional funding by providing grantees with significant autonomy to design innovative solutions focused on a desired outcome rather than prescribed means. They typically incorporate elements such as competitive and open selection, risk sharing, and an explicit public purpose.
• GRP's experience indicates that resilience building is a complex process requiring significant time to establish foundations, such as building partnerships and securing stakeholder buy-in. A lack of shared understanding or a clear working definition of resilience at the start of a program can hinder effective design and evaluation.
• To reach small, local innovators and 'unusual suspects', Challenge Funds must provide significant non-financial assistance and mentoring. Without a deliberate strategy and accessible guidelines that avoid development jargon, funding tends to gravitate toward established international NGOs or businesses.
• Effective selection processes for Challenge Funds often utilize a staged application approach to reduce the bidding cost for local organizations. Best practices include technical assessments by experts, clear published appraisal criteria, and providing constructive feedback to unsuccessful applicants.
• Implementation of resilience programs requires high levels of flexibility and adaptive management to respond to unpredictable climatic and political shocks. This necessitates that funders design flexibility into budgets, workplans, and reporting requirements rather than relying on rigid contracts.
• Measuring the impact of resilience-building projects is difficult because increased capacities (intermediate outcomes) may take years to translate into actual resilience, and a significant shock may not occur during the project's lifetime.
• Scaling innovations often fails due to a lack of long-term planning beyond the initial grant period, a gap known as the 'valley of death'. Successful scaling requires a transition plan, multi-year timeframes (often 5-7 years for cleantech), and a combination of different financial instruments.
• The route to scaling is highly dependent on national and sub-national contexts; a 'blueprint' solution approach is often less effective than scaling the end-user-centric process used to develop the solution.

APA

Yaron, G., Hepworth, C., & Verkaart, S. (2019). Case Study: Lessons of Challenge Funds for resilience building. Global Resilience Partnership. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp-challenge-funds.pdf

Chicago

Yaron, Gil, Catrin Hepworth, and Simone Verkaart. Case Study: Lessons of Challenge Funds for resilience building. Global Resilience Partnership, 2019. https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp-challenge-funds.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Yaron |first1=Gil |last2=Hepworth |first2=Catrin |last3=Verkaart |first3=Simone |title=Case Study: Lessons of Challenge Funds for resilience building |publisher=Global Resilience Partnership |date=September 2019 |url=https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp-challenge-funds.pdf |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{yaron2019case, author = {Yaron, Gil and Hepworth, Catrin and Verkaart, Simone}, title = {{Case Study: Lessons of Challenge Funds for resilience building}}, institution = {Global Resilience Partnership}, year = {2019}, month = sep, url = {https://www.globalresiliencepartnership.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/grp-challenge-funds.pdf}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }