ADB Challenge: Innovative Cooling Solutions for Rural Women in Asia

Extreme heat is compounding Asia’s food waste crisis — currently, over 50% of global food waste comes from the region. Women in agriculture, lacking access to cooling, fall further into poverty and face deepened gender inequalities. Sustainable cooling solutions are key to mitigating these challenges. In rural areas, the lack of sustainable cooling solutions leads to substantial post-harvest losses for women in agriculture, undermining food security and economic stability while exacerbating their vulnerability to climate change and heat-related stress.

Step up to the Technology Innovation Challenge and create innovative cooling solutions to empower rural women, advance food security, and strengthen resilience to extreme heat.

What you will get?

• Financial Support: Win up to $500,000 in grant funding to implement your innovative solutions (applicants must co-finance at least 10% in cash or in-kind).
• Expert Guidance: Access mentorship from ADB experts to refine and advance your projects.
• Market Access: Explore new business opportunities and scale your solutions for wider impact.
• Recognition and Visibility: Gain visibility by presenting your solutions at ADB knowledge events and to potential investors.
• Impact Testing: Pilot your solutions in real-world settings to strengthen women’s resilience to heat stress.

Expected Outputs

• Expected outputs include, but are not limited to:
  • Gender analysis, which includes relevant sex-disaggregated data and thorough consideration of gender issues, highlighting both constraints and opportunities.
  • A gender action plan incorporates the project’s gender performance indicators, activities, resources, responsibilities and timelines for implementation and monitoring to ensure women and men participate and benefit as intended by the project.
  • Project communication plan developed and implemented (includes project video and other results and lessons learned content published).
  • Pilot of the solution conducted (including stakeholder meetings, capacity building workshops and closing workshop).
  • Progress and completion reports delivered, including verification of the results by an independent party.

Eligibility Criteria

• Geographic scope: The project must be implemented in one of the countries mentioned below:
  • Bangladesh or Cambodia.
• Financing requirements: The Applicant must co-finance at least 10% of the total project cost via their own resources or from other funders. Their contribution can be cash or in-kind (for example, travel or staff time).
• Type of applicants: The following type of entities can apply:
  • Companies
  • Not-for-profit organisations
  • Civil society organisations
  • Women’s organizations
  • Research institutions
  • Government-owned enterprises (must be legally and financially autonomous of the government in the implementation country)

For more information, visit ADB.