The Mastercard Foundation has launched its Ksh 16 billion (USD 126 million) Fund for Resilience and Prosperity to support SMEs in agriculture, climate adaptation, and digital economy sectors across 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The objective of the Fund is to unlock enterprise growth and catalyze, scale-up, and sustain the creation of dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for the youth, PLWDs, and refuge youth.
SMEs that have innovative and scalable business models with significant potential to create jobs are highly encouraged to visit the Fund website and apply to the rolling call for proposals.
The Fund will target businesses that have innovative and scalable business models with significant potential to create jobs for young people, supporting them to create sustainable impact. This is in partnership with AFSIC – Investing in Africa, an annual investment event. The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity will come in as a sponsor for the 2024 AFSIC – Investing in Africa.
The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity also aims to address a broad spectrum of SME-specific challenges as well as macro issues using four interventions. These are;
Challenge Fund: Offering direct financial support through a challenge fund to address the resource flow barriers faced by SMEs looking to scale-up, and, in turn, create and sustain employment opportunities for young women and men.
Connect Fund: Providing investor readiness support to the SMEs and negotiation of partnerships with potential financiers to ensure sustainability and growth.
Technical Assistance (TA): Adding value beyond financial support through technical assistance and capacity building to address the barriers concerning human capital and access to markets.
Convening and influencing: Convening relevant stakeholders to encourage an enabling business environment through experienced partners and digital platforms to drive systematic change and address the issues that impede the creation of work opportunities for the youth, especially young women.
The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity, through the Challenge Fund intervention, will offer direct financial support to address the resource flow barriers faced by SMEs. The funding structure will be determined on a case-by-case basis after evaluating proposals and organizations. Additional support to successful applicants will include tailored technical assistance in alignment with FRP objectives over a three-year period.
The Fund will soon be launching the Climate Impact Challenge Fund which will also be a rolling call for proposals open for nine months for SMEs in this sector. Thereafter the Digital Economy Challenge Fund will be launched.