Deadline: 18-Jun-21
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Uganda in collaboration with the Stanbic Bank Uganda Limited (SBUL) and Stanbic Business Incubator Limited (SBIL) hereby invite you to submit a Proposal to an Open Innovation Challenge Fund Call for the Youth4Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship Facility.
UNDP Uganda in partnership with Stanbic Uganda Holdings Limited have initiated an Innovation Challenge Fund Call to provide competitive matching grant awards as well as mentoring, capacity building and entrepreneurship development training to youth owned MSMEs legally recognised under the Laws of Uganda, operating in any of the targeted sectors of agriculture, tourism, development minerals, manufacturing, renewable energy, Information Technology and Creative Industry; with a product or service on the market.
The Call targets MSMEs looking to pilot and or scale their inclusive business models and solutions (inclusive business models and solutions are enterprises that include low-income people as customers, as owners, employees, producers and entrepreneurs at various points within the value chain).
Objectives
The key objectives of the Facility are to:
- Support youth resident in Uganda and enterprises to pilot innovative ideas (solutions, technologies, business models), or new ways and markets of delivering products and services with a commercial imperative.
- Enable enterprises to transform successful innovative pilots with commercial viability into impact at scale.
- Stimulate faster recovery of SMEs from the impacts of COVID-19 and enable them build sustainable enterprises that are resilient to similar disruption; and
- Establish a functional ecosystem platform to connect young entrepreneurs, MSMEs, Government, Development Partners, financial institutions, and all other relevant actors
Funding Information
- Successful Applicants can receive from USD 10,000 up to a maximum of USD 40,000 in cash and/or in-kind support (goods such as equipment and services such as technical assistance) through this Innovation Challenge Fund.
- Successful Applicants might also receive 12 months of tailored business development services and enterprise development training from the Stanbic Business Incubator and mentorship from UNDP Accelerator lab to foster the nexus between business development services and development solutions.
The Facility comprises of four interventions, namely:
- IDEAthon through which we adapt the successful formula of Hackathons and similar design challenges, to nurture creative early-stage and start-up ideas that could eventually feed into the Y4BF pipeline and potentially become the next generation of innovative and inclusive MSMEs.
- Innovation Challenge Fund and Growth Accelerator that provides competitive matching grant awards necessary to spur impact-driven innovation by the youth and SMEs in sectors where growth leads to jobs.
- Enterprise Challenge Fund which provides competitive catalytic funding in form of blended finance (grant awards and concessional debt finance from partner financial institutions) to SMEs with commercially viable businesses that address a defined key development challenge.
- Youth Entrepreneurship and Innovation Ecosystem platform which will revitalize youth networks including the YouthConnekt in order to collectively identify and tackle systemic issues impeding the social economic empowerment of young people.
Eligibility Criteria
Firms interested in accessing the support from the Innovation Challenge Fund and Growth Accelerator component of the Youth4Business Innovation and Entrepreneurship Facility must meet all the following criteria:
- Must be a firm/joint venture that is legally recognized under the Laws of Uganda with a business license readily available for verification.
- Must be an established operational firm/ joint venture in business for at least 12 months ending 19 March 2021, that is either:
- founded/owned by youth (defined in this call as all persons aged 18 to 35 years inclusive) resident in Uganda, with the founder/owner being involved fulltime in the management of the day to day affairs of the enterprise; OR
- managed by an entrepreneur that is keen on piloting and or scaling an inclusive business solution (defined in this call as enterprises that integrates youth in its business value chain as employees; suppliers of inputs/ raw materials; or distributors of their products or services – agency – while providing solutions to development challenges) that creates direct or indirect jobs for youth; OR
- managed by an entrepreneur that is keen on piloting and or scaling an innovative solution that integrates youth in its business value chain as suppliers of inputs/ raw materials; and distributors of their products or services (agency) while providing solutions to development challenges.
- Must be a firm operating in the targeted sectors of agriculture, tourism, development minerals, manufacturing, renewable energy, information technology or creative arts industry, with a product or service on the market; or a not-for-profit social enterprise founded/ owned by youth with a financially viable and sustainable business model; and able to demonstrate a track record of at least twelve months of business operations ending 19 March 2021.
- Be financially viable, socially responsible, environmentally friendly and culturally sensitive firm willing and able to match the grant award with own resources of at least 20% of the grant award in-cash and the rest in-kind (80%).
- Must demonstrate capacity and dedication to implement their innovation and or scale their business and demonstrate sound financial performance and practices.
Exclusions
Applications for the Y4BF Innovation Challenge Fund and Growth Accelerator will be deemed ineligible if they are any of the following:
- of benefit to an individual only.
- to be implemented primarily outside of the boundaries of the State of Uganda.
- in support of an Organisation that discriminates based on race, religion, or gender
- for general operating or administrative support.
- for retroactive funding, debt retirement, or reserves.
- for conferences, symposia, annual events, or travel to/ attendance at such events, tickets, tables, benefits, raffles, souvenir programs, advertising or fundraising dinners.
- to cover the cost of fundraising activities.
- for religious organizations that serve primarily their membership and/ or their direct religious purposes, unless the community at large will benefit significantly for endowment grants.
- from Government bodies.
For more information, visit https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=76614