Nexa Lighthouse: Climate x Health Innovation in Asia and the Pacific

Funding for bold, innovative approaches that enable local health actors to turn climate-driven health risk signals into timely health service delivery action, reducing health harms from mosquito-borne infections, extreme heat and poor air quality.

Nexa Lighthouse brings together two climate and health initiatives: Nexa, which is co-led by Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) and the Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation), and the Lighthouse Fund, which is led by AVPN, a non-profit organisation based in Singapore. Nexa Lighthouse is co-led by GCC (in partnership with the Government of Canada) and AVPN, together with Bayer Foundation, India Health Fund, Novo Nordisk Foundation, Sanofi Foundation and Temasek Foundation.

The Nexa Lighthouse Climate x Health Innovation in Asia and the Pacific scheme is investing in proven innovations across Asia and the Pacific that help local health actors translate climate-related health risk signals into timely action. These innovations should focus on reducing health risks associated with mosquito-borne infections, extreme heat and poor air quality.

Climate change is intensifying health risks across Asia and the Pacific, the world’s most disaster-prone region, with the greatest impacts felt by vulnerable populations. Despite these growing challenges, many local health systems lack the climate-health data, tools and capacity needed to anticipate and respond effectively to climate-driven health threats. This scheme seeks bold, innovative solutions that enable local health actors to turn climate-driven health risk signals into timely health service delivery action.

Solutions must be climate-driven health innovations that are intentionally designed to address a health-related impact of climate change, where the issue is caused or significantly influenced by climate risks. Furthermore, climate change as a risk multiplier is a central consideration of the innovation’s design, functionality and deployment. In order to be considered relevant to this call, innovations must meet the Nexa definition of climate-integrated or climate-centred (outlined in Figure 1 in the funding guidelines).

Applications must directly address at least one of the following areas of focus:

1. Climate-informed early warning and monitoring systems: Innovations that allow health actors to anticipate and respond to the impacts of heat, poor air quality and/or changing mosquito ecology (resulting in the accelerated spread of malaria and dengue infections).  
2. Climate-responsive patient care delivery: Innovations that strengthen local response to mosquito-borne infection harms and/or the health impacts of heat and poor air quality. Includes innovations that support triage, diagnosis, treatment and continuity of care, particularly for those living with climate-sensitive chronic non-communicable disease, children, older people and pregnant women. Chronic non-communicable diseases of interest are cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, chronic respiratory diseases and chronic kidney disease.
   

Investment will be in Transition to Scale innovations that are ready to expand across Asia and the Pacific that help local health actors translate climate-related health risk signals into timely action. Transition to Scale innovations are novel approaches that have already been tested, proven to be effective and are now ready to be implemented more widely.