Deadline 11 November 2022

The African Development Bank Group's Affirmative Financial Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative is launching its second call for proposals for the "Women Entrepreneurship Enablers" programme, which targets women's business associations, incubators, accelerators, women-led cooperatives and civil society organisations that promote the development of women entrepreneurs on the continent.

The programme supports projects that improve the viability and sustainability of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) led by women and enables them to access funding opportunities to expand their businesses.

To address this challenge, the African Development Bank Group established Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA), a flagship initiative that focuses specifically on increasing inclusive financing for women entrepreneurs on the continent. AFAWA's main objective is to fill the financial gap for women entrepreneurs and unleash their entrepreneurial capacity and full potential. AFAWA is unique in that it offers a multidimensional approach to removing the constraints that women entrepreneurs face through three pillars of intervention:

Strengthen access to finance for women-owned/led businesses by leveraging the Bank's traditional financial instruments (lines of credit, trade finance and equity funds) and through the AFAWA Growth Guarantee (G4G), an innovative mechanism that reduces the risk of women entrepreneurs and increases the appetite of Financial Institutions (FIs) to lend to WSMEs;

Training women entrepreneurs and financial institutions;

Strengthening the enabling environment to increase WSMEs' ability to access funding.

Under the Women Entrepreneurship Enablers programme, the Bank seeks to support projects that aim to increase the viability and sustainability of formal women-owned SMEs and give them access to funding opportunities to grow their businesses.

The Bank encourages women's business associations, incubators, accelerators, formal women's cooperatives, eligible civil society organisations and other legal entities to share proposals in line with the objectives and themes described below.

Financing information

• Requests for funding can be for a specific project or for an indicative programme of several projects, or for several countries. The minimum limit for requesting funding from this call for proposals is US$ 100,000 and the maximum limit is US$ 250,000. This is a one-off grant.

Expectations

• The proposals submitted will:
  • Demonstrate innovative approaches to building a supportive ecosystem for female entrepreneurship with a view to improving access to finance for WSMEs and accelerating business growth;
  • Develop innovative ways to disseminate advisory and technical assistance services addressing capacity constraints and skills enhancement for WSMEs to support access to finance;
  • Develop a comprehensive and sustainable capacity-building programme to enable access to finance in partnership with financial institutions;
  • Increase visibility and digital presence for WSMEs;
  • Improve access to guidance and role models for WSMEs.

Geographical Scope

• Applications are welcome from all 54 African countries, countries in transition/fragile countries, Sahel and North African countries are strongly encouraged to submit proposals.

Criteria

• Projects must be implemented in more than 2 countries;
• The duration of the project must not exceed 2 (two) years;
• Project recipients and sponsors must be based in Africa or provide evidence of partnership with African entities and show that the proposed activities, operations and projects will be implemented in Africa;
• Applicants must be legally constituted institutions of at least three years' standing with solid financial and purchasing procedures;
• Collaboration between two or more candidate facilitators is encouraged;
• Partnerships are strongly encouraged, particularly with one or more financial organisations and with the public and private sectors;
• Previous experience in managing external funding and executing donor projects is required;

For more information, visit  https://www.afdb.org/en/news-and-events/press-releases/african-development-banks-afawa-initiative-asks-business-enablers-apply-second-round-funding -support-africas-women-led-businesses-55552