RfA: Development of financial services and financial education for returnees, youth and women in Ghana

UNCDF is bringing its expertise in promoting financial inclusion to support job creation for youth “Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana (GrEEn)” programme to be funded by the European Union Trust Fund for Africa. This programme will contribute to addressing the root causes of irregular migration through green and climate resilient local economic development and improving future prospects of beneficiaries, by creating employment and enterprise opportunities in selected sectors and regions (Ashanti and Western). The action aims at supporting job creation in regions of departure, transit and return of Ghana, creating local financial ecosystems that facilitate the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and enabling the transition of local economies to green and climate resilient development.

The programme will use the lessons learnt from UNCDF experience in (i) Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRGs) which support investments for green and resilient local economies across 13 countries as well as (ii) best practices to advance increase access to finance for youth and digital finance.

Objective:

The purpose of this RFA is to select innovative financial service providers (banks, financial institutions, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), FinTechs) committed, ready and able to provide integrated financial services and financial education for up to 10,000 youth, women and returnees – out of which 4,000 will be benefiting from the green and climate compatible investments and cash for work schemes. The services are intended to open up a wider range of economic opportunities of these vulnerable groups. In particular, the financial services expected are the following:

1. Payments of cash for work stipends: the selected partner will need to develop (or adapt) affordable and adapted services to make sure that beneficiaries of cash for work schemes receive their stipends in a timely and efficient manner.
2. Accumulation of savings: the selected partner will need to develop (or adapt) affordable, accessible and responsible services to ensure beneficiaries are incentivized to accumulate savings in the formal account.
3. Financial Education: the selected partner will work with UNCDF App developer partner to build an innovative mobile platform to provide Financial Education to tandem with the financial services being developed. Partners are in charge of content creation and training delivery in close collaboration with partners under R2.
4. Leverage of asset accumulation to access other financial services: : the selected partner will also be expected to develop client-centric financial services for these clients so that they can leverage and to seize additional economic opportunities. The selected partner will have to at least develop a credit product and a product linked to remittances.

Overview of the timeline:

The selected partner will be expected to sign a 36 month agreement with UNCDF.

Information session will be organized during the week of March 16. Interested candidates must confirmed their participation at youthstart@uncdf.org.

IMPORTANT! Updated deadline - Final deadline for applications: April 14th, 2020, 5:00 PM (GMT+0). Please send your application to youthstart@uncdf.org mentioning the subject of the email "Name of the organization - development of FS and FE Ghana".

Contact:

You may send questions to youthstart@uncdf.org. A FAQ document will be generated based on enquiries received on or before March 20^th, 2020. The FAQs will be posted on the UNCDF website shortly thereafter. The subject line of the email should read: RFA: ‘development of FS and FE Ghana'.