Nigerian Social Enterprise Selected For The 2021 Duke Unicef Innovation Accelerator Program

Building on UNICEF's legacy of innovating for children and Duke's track record of success in entrepreneurial education, the Accelerator supports social enterprises tackling the most pressing challenges facing children and youth around the world.

The Accelerator's second cohort of innovators come from diverse academic professional and geographic backgrounds. Through the two-year program, the entrepreneurs will have access to a multitude of resources, including UNICEF subject matter experts, mentorship opportunities, Duke University faculty and students, monthly capacity building webinars, and a one-time grant to support scale.

The Accelerator's second cohort consists of four non-profit organizations and three for-profit companies operating in Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, and Sierra Leone. The innovators' solutions-which range from distribution models, to recycling programs, to hygiene products-all relate to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

Selected with the mission of supporting gender equity and representing inclusive, diverse solutions, four of the cohort members are female entrepreneurs and three are male. Additionally, five of the cohort members are from Africa,including Ethiopia,Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda; one is from the United States and one is from India.

The Nigerian Social enterprise, Toiletpride Initiative which is helping improve access to quality and affordable toilets through strengthening of the sanitation product supply chain and local education campaigns to urban and peri-urban schools and impoverished people, is the first social enterprise from West Africa to participate in the DUIA Cohort Program

For more than 4 years now, Toiletpride has been active working with organizations and individuals to provide innovative solutions for strengthening Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Schools and communities across Nigeria. In 2020, Toiletpride launched the Accelerating Access to Rural Sanitation in Nigeria (AATRISAN) project, designed to reduce open defecation and improve access to sanitation and safe hygiene Practices in Nigeria through market-based approaches

"We are very pleased to be part of the DUIA cohort as It is an exciting platform to take our idea to scale and translate it into improving more lives in Nigeria. The Duke UNICEF Innovation Accelerator program will also afford me and the team, a new opportunity to move 30,000 new households from basic to improved sanitation facilities and contribute significantly to reducing open defecation in Nigeria ÔÇØ Says Chukwuma Nnanna, Founder and Executive Director Toiletpride
To learn more about the Duke-UNICEF Innovation Accelerator, visit www.dukeunicef.org