Results case
Promoting youth engagement in innovation and entrepreneurship in the Gaza Strip
The lives of many young people in Gaza are beset by oppression, violence and deprivation. With unemployment rates among youth reaching 70%, many young Palestinians are increasingly disillusioned with life, unable to secure employment and struggle to fill their free time.
Recognising the obstacles faced by youth, and the overall political, economic and social challenges faced by Palestinian society, the DCA-NCA joint office in Palestine and local NGO MA’AN Development Centre has placed youth at the centre of their work in Gaza.
The HUB for Innovation and Entrepreneurship provides opportunities for young Palestinian entrepreneurs in Gaza to work with project managers, academics and experts in business and agriculture, to design and build products, services, businesses and social ventures to address daily and immediate gaps in agriculture and food safety in Gaza. With the vision to create an ecosystem for innovation, HUB supports business incubation and acceleration by offering training, mentoring, technical support, networking and logistic services. To get projects started, DCA-NCA helped to mobilise resources through seed funding, crowd sourcing and online fundraising. Partnerships with national and international academic institutions, advisors and experts are fostered to develop a global network in innovation, research, agriculture and agribusiness. HUB runs as a social enterprise, resources are reinvested locally, projects are run locally and solutions are developed locally.
Examples on projects that have received start-up capital include: Modelling a new irrigation system to address water salinity, using olive-oil residue to produce bio-energy, and developing new mixtures of locally produced fodder for poultry farms.