Deadline: 9-Sep-22
The Investment Climate Reform (ICR) Facility is pleased to announce a call for proposals to provide national and regional development finance institutions (DFIs) with the opportunity to request tailor-made technical assistance is now open.
This Call for Proposals is a one-time call, and up to six banks will be selected to benefit from assistance from September 2022 to August 2025. Interested institutions can submit a proposal for a set of activities, of which the majority should be related to WOMEN ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT (WEE) and gender-lens investing (GLI).
Areas
Capacity building can be provided in following areas:
- Management processes and investment pipelines (Credit risk management, Development impact finance, Management trainings, PPPs, Market research)
- Access to and leverage of international funding (Private sector lending approaches, including blended finance, Access to international and/or bilateral funds, and guarantee instruments)
- Strengthening institutional structures (Risk frameworks, M&E, ESG standards, strategies, reporting and governance)
- Specific financial instruments (Social Impact Bonds, Project Finance, Private Equity and Venture Capital Financing, Trade Finance instruments)
- Policy dialogue (DFI engagement in political processes/ Public-Private Dialogues (PPDs), including promoting WEE/GLI in political agenda, Implementation of national gender policies, Peer-to-peer dialogue on public policies)
Details
Guiding examples of gender-related support that can be covered include:
- Conducting institutional gender assessments
- Development of gender policies, gender strategies and/or gender action plans
- Market research on the needs of women entrepreneurs
- Support in building a business case and developing advisory services for women entrepreneurs
- Refinement of financial products to cater to the needs of female clients
- Designing gender-responsive M&E systems
Eligibility Criteria
- This Call for Proposals is open to applications from national or regional development finance institutions (DFIs) that are fully or partly publicly funded and have a development mandate. Commercial financial insitutions are not eligible.
- Requests must come from a DFI based in a member state of the Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States (OACPS).
- Given the ICR Facility’s focus on women economic empowerment (WEE) and gender-lens investing (GLI), the majority of activities proposed should have a direct or indirect impact on WEE and/or GLI.
Please note that institutions from Cuba and South African are not eligible to receive funding from the European Development Fund.
Selection Criteria
- Proposal itself
- Clarity and structure of the submission
- Do proposed activities relate to the DFI’s strategic plan?
- Are proposed activities complementary to other activities of the DFI and/or support the DFI receives from other donors?
- Set-up and thematic focus of the DFI
- Does the DFI support and promote the national/ regional investment climate?
- Does the DFI promote private sector development?
- Previous engagement of the DFI in WEE/GLI (for example through specific programmes or internal measures) OR
- In case DFI has not been previously engaged in WEE/GLI: Comprehensive explanation for interest in engaging more in WEE/GLI (e.g. operationalization of a gender strategy, support of the national government in achieving gender-related national policies, or other demonstration of commitment to improving WEE/GLI)
- Potential impact of support
- Potential impact of technical assistance on the work processes of the DFI, its internal structures
- Potential impact of technical assistance on the work processes or internal structures of the DFI in improving DFIs’ internal gender performance, for instance in terms of recruitment, management, internal gender strategy, or its service offer for women
- Is the majority of proposed activities directly or indirectly targeting WEE/ GLI? (priority will be given to higher WEE/GLI content)
- Collaboration with ICR Facility
- Has the DFI already benefitted from tailor-made support from the ICR Facility (priority will be given to new institutions)?
- Commitment to actively collaborate with the ICR Facility to implement activities over the period 2022-2025
- Identification of the responsible department that will implement the ICR Facility’s support and of two individual persons as focal points
For more information, visit https://www.icr-facility.eu/technical-assistance/tailored-support-to-dfis/call-for-proposals