As part of UNCDF strategy ”Leaving no one behind in the digital era”, UNCDF is looking for legally established entities in Uganda that can provide digitization and financial services to micro and small agribusinesses in the regions of West Nile, Northern Uganda, Karamoja and Southwestern Uganda.

UNCDF is partnering with the World Food Programme (WFP)-Agriculture Market Support (AMS) programme to deliver on a project funded by the Mastercard Foundation with the ultimate objective of creating job opportunities for 90,500 youth in rural Uganda. WFP AMS will contribute to the Mastercard Foundation Young Africa Works strategy to create decent and fulfilling work and business growth opportunities for the youth, especially young women, and increase financial inclusion through a combination of capacity strengthening strategies in the agricultural sector in Uganda.

Digital tools are already proving their potential to transform businesses and value chains – from improving operational efficiencies for businesses, to opening new markets, and increasing revenues. Further, digital tools produce digital data points, which help financial service providers (FSPs) to understand the health of businesses and their risk profile in a cost-effective way– thus unlocking access to finance.

This project aims to accelerate the digitalization of youth, women and refugee led agribusiness MSEs. Digital tools and solutions will be introduced in the agribusinesses to assist the linkage to markets, quality inputs, produce bulking, extension and advisory services. Ultimately, the usage of digital tools and the ensuing digital data records will then be used to link the businesses to financial institutions to unlock access to financing.

Digitization itself will enable the sprouting of new types of jobs for the youths in the target regions. Particularly, this intervention will include the creation of digital community entrepreneurs (DCEs) - as providers and distributors of digital related products and services at the mid and last mile. UNCDF has been spearheading the DCE model in northern Uganda and West Nile – with good traction in creating new types of jobs for the youths.

As part of the second intervention under the WFP collaboration, UNCDF is looking to provide two grants to two partners with legally established entities in Uganda that have scalable digital solutions that are applicable to agribusiness MSEs. Additionally, these entities should be able to provide, or in partnership with another entity, credit to agribusiness MSEs in the Northern, Southwestern, West Nile and Karamoja regions of Uganda. These entities should be in position to deploy alternative credit scoring methodologies leveraging data to increase access to credit for youth, women and refugee led MSEs, VSLAs and cooperatives.

The final outcome of this intervention is to have 16,000 youth, women, refugees, SHF enterprises and MSEs accessing and using different types of digital services (finance, information, market linkages, inputs, advisory etc.) and 7,000 youth, women and refugee led agribusiness MSEs accessing credit.

The focus areas include:

Area 1: Digitization of Agribusiness MSEs
In this focus area, UNCDF will support the digitization partners to introduce digital tools and solutions to Agribusiness MSEs in the target regions. The digital tools and solutions will be aimed at digitization of the MSE business operations and track records of production, sales, inventory, and payments. This data will then be used to improve business management and provide data that financial service providers can rely on for alternative credit scoring and lending to these MSEs.

Area 2: Leveraging digital tools to increase access to finance for target population
Under this focus area, UNCDF will support financial service providers to utilize the data collected in area 1 for innovative credit scoring and lending to the targeted MSEs. Partners that exhibit capability and willingness to innovate around their products, processes, and business model for lending to MSEs will be supported with technical assistance and a grant from UNCDF, to develop / refine / improve their MSE loan products with specific focus on women, youth and refugees.

The Project is expected to be implemented until 30^th September 2026 and will be undertaken in the West Nile, Northern, Karamoja and Southwestern regions of Uganda.

UNCDF will provide a grant and technical assistance to the successful applicants to adapt their solutions and go-to-market strategies with a gender lens to the peculiarities of the target participants. Applicants should be in a position to deliver on all the areas of intervention – either independently or as part of a consortium.

Selected applicants will be expected to fund at least 15% of the total project cost in cash (for costs such as technical resources, staff, and operational expenses).

Applicants may apply independently or in a consortium, provided that the consortium has a pre-established partnership prior to when this request for applications was issued.

Inquiries to this request for applications may be submitted by email to uncdf.rfa@uncdf.org cc mildred.wengozi.b@uncdf.org. Please use in the subject email “Provision of Digitization and Credit services to Micro and Small Agribusinesses in the regions of Northern Uganda, Southwestern, Karamoja and West Nile”.

Please submit your proposal through this e-investment platform by 19 March, 2024, 23:59 (EDT).

Submissions using other templates or sent by other electronic or non-electronic means will not be eligible.