Grand Challenges for Development mobilize governments, companies, and foundations around important issues. Through these programs, USAID and public and private partners bring in new voices to solve development problems. They source new solutions, test new ideas, and scale what works.

All Grand Challenges offer challenge grants, but many use additional tools depending on the problem they intend to solve. These can include prizes, hack-a-thons, capacity-building services, and more.

Together, the Grand Challenges partners have committed more than $534 million in grants and technical assistance to fund more than 786 innovations in 84 countries. Partners also help innovators attract customers, partners, and investors and get the support they need to grow.

Since 2011, USAID and its partners have launched 12 Grand Challenges. To mark the first decade of Grand Challenges, we conducted a meta-level evaluation. Learn more about the results here.

Active Grand Challenges are listed first:

Image
COUNTERING TRANSNATIONAL CORRUPTION GRAND CHALLENGE
Image
All children reading graphic
Image
Creating Hope in Conflict will identify and support groundbreaking solutions that engage the private sector and draw from the experiences of affected communities in order to significantly improve - and in many cases, save - the lives of vulnerable people affected by conflict
Image
Water and Energy for Food (WE4F) aims to scale groundbreaking water-energy-food innovations to impact food security, gender, and poverty reduction in an environmentally-sustainable way.

To learn more about Grand Challenges for Development, please contact challenges@usaid.gov.