Paying for health emergencies and the risk of death and disability are some of the most worrying concerns for more than one-third of the adult population in developing countries, adding to the debt burden of migrants who send remittances back home to support their families. Innovations in insurance, pension and wage digitization have the potential to reduce such worrying concerns and risks to improve the financial resilience of migrants and their families, which is what this Request for Application (RFA) aims to address.

Through this RFA, UNCDF is looking for partner institutions that are willing to adopt an inclusive approach and migrant-centric designs to ensure that the offered solutions are scaled with men and women migrants’ unique and different constraints and aspirations.

This RFA will enable UNCDF to support up to 10 private sector institutions in accelerating the adoption of innovations focused on enhancing the financial resilience of low-income migrants in any of the following areas:

1. Wage digitization: Supporting affordable wage digitization solutions that incentivize migrants to participate in the formal financial ecosystem, enabling migrants to access broader financial services that may otherwise be limited or expensive, such as payments, remittance, insurance, pensions, credit and savings.

2. Migrant insurance: Developing migrant insurance products and business models that are tailored to the needs of migrants and are aligned with the incentives of global reinsurers, insurers, impact investors, insurtech, fintech and remittance value chain members, integrating their business priorities.

3. Migrant pension: Responsive migrant pension products embedded in the publicly provided and/or private sector-led business models that facilitate market opportunities for business actors across the ecosystem (migrant employers, pension fund managers, impact investors, MNOs, MTOs, fintech, insuretch and other remittance-linked value chain members).

Scope and focus countries: UNCDF aims to support and scale private-sector-led inclusive innovations through partnerships extending to six focus countries:

• Migrant destination countries: UAE and Malaysia

• Migrant origin countries: Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, and Sri Lanka

Applicants can apply with a single area or country of intervention or propose a project concerning more than one country/area (wage digitization, migrant insurance and/or pension). Please clearly indicate the countries and area(s) targeted in your proposal.

Time period: Projects are expected to have a duration of 6–12 months. Activities are expected to finish no later than June 2023. Final assessment reports must be submitted no later than August 2023.

Eligibility: The applicant/lead applicant must be an existing registered and licensed entity with the necessary regulatory approvals and technical infrastructure to scale the proposed migrant financial resilience product/service.

Selection: UNCDF will award agreements to up to 10 applicants, which will include up to three Performance Based Agreements and up to seven Technical Assistance Agreements:

Performance Based Agreements (PBA) for Grant: The selection of the applicants will depend on the readiness level, timeline, impact, outreach potential, and gender intentionality of the solution proposed. The grant will be awarded to the ones who score the highest in the evaluation criteria of this RFA.

The grant amount under PBAs can range from $50,000 to $150,000. Selected applicants will be expected to fund at least 50 percent of the total project cost in cash (for costs such as technical resources, staff, and operational expenses). This should include the cost of the dedicated capacity from the partner to manage the UNCDF-supported engagement.

Technical Assistance Agreements (TAA): The selected applicants will benefit from UNCDF’s curated technical assistance support services across three interventions at ecosystem, institution, and product levels

Information session on Zoom on 25 August: You may access the recording of the Information Session on YouTube.

Application deadline: All applications must be submitted by 23:59 hours (EST, the New York time zone) on 20 September 2022 on UNCDF grant platform