Deadline: 30-Nov-20
The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is inviting applications from legal entities in Nepal that can offer or expand inclusive last-mile solutions and financial instruments targeting the rural and underserved communities by scaling-up payment’s digitalization and processes digitalization of agriculture value chains.
Digitalizing value chains will involve the deployment of technological solutions that might include cloud-based ledger solutions and integrated mobile wallets solutions for smallholder farmers. DFS provider shall implement a digital credit product through their mobile wallet with the value proposition to Farmers of Agriculture Value chains to get access to credit for short-term financing needs (mainly livelihood needs).
In order to accelerate the acceptance of these digital financial services offerings, the selected entity shall deploy field-based representatives who engage with DFS stakeholders in selected rural areas, including agents, merchants, customers/farmers and agricultural/multipurpose/rural finance cooperatives. The on-field representative shall engage with the recruitment of cooperatives, agents and merchant, along with on-ground support towards handholding and monitoring, digital literacy education and exchange of learning.
The role of the selected entity encompasses:
- Offering or Expanding Agriculture Value chain based technical products targeting payments and process digitalization;
- Onboarding and digitization of agricultural/ multipurpose/ rural finance cooperatives involved in the Agri-value chain;
- Offering Digital Credit Product through Mobile Wallet Solutions to Farmers who require short term credit for household needs and bridge finance for livelihoods;
- Agent network recruitment and management;
- Merchant network recruitment and management;
- Onboarding Farmers as a customer for Digital financial services;
- Implementing field-based representatives for accelerating of DFS ecosystem in the Agriculture Value chain.
Funding Information
- UNCDF will provide a grant to the selected applicants. UNCDF contributions may range from USD 40,000 to USD 50,000.
- Projects are expected to have a duration of maximum 6 months duration. Activities are expected to be terminated no later than April 2021.
Geographic Scope
- The geographical scope of this RFA is rural areas of Kavre, Bhaktapur and Lalitpur in Nepal.
Consortiums
- Applicants may apply only once under this RFA, whether independently or in a consortium;
- Joint applications between market players in the country are encouraged if the solution proposed will expand delivery networks and promote rural and/or other last-mile access to digital finance;
- Applications from consortiums of organizations must show that the partnership was established prior to the submission to this call for applications;
- The lead applicant must be a registered entity with at least one year of operations and must have statutory accounts and audited financial statements for at least one operating year.
Selection Process
- Step 1: Eligibility screening – eligibility will be done according to the eligibility requirements.
- Step 2: Evaluation of eligible applications based on the evaluation criteria.
- Step 3: Due diligence – due diligence on the applications and their applicants will be conducted on applications that receive the minimum qualifying score (70/100).
- Step 4: Notification of applications – all applicants will be notified of the status of their applications.
- Step 5: Pre-Grant negotiation and Performance-based Agreement – the selected applicants will finalize the scope of the grant and finalize budgets, indicators and targets, workplan and disbursements of the Grant that will be released on the achievement of each milestone.
- Step 6: Approval of the selected applications by the Investment Committee – applications selected will be reviewed, discussed and approved by the Investment Committee. Any further due diligence requirements, risk analysis or milestone recommendations from the Investment Committee will be followed in later steps.
- Step 7: Notification of applications – all applicants will be notified of the status of their applications after final approval from UNCDF Board / Investment Committee.
For more information, visit https://bit.ly/2IRy1mE