Deadline: 30 April 2020
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) invites Non-governmental organizations (NGO) operating in Kyrgyz Republic to provide proposals for the implementation of activities related to sub-project Improving an access of small and medium enterprises, especially women-led companies, to affordable innovative and inclusive tools of financing and investment in Osh, Jalal-Abad, Naryn and Issyk-Kul oblasts and to take part in the Call for Grants.
The Call for Grant proposal is announced within the framework of the UNDP project “Aid for Trade”. The project focuses on supporting Central Asian countries in promoting inclusive and sustainable growth patterns in rural areas and within green productive sectors.
The project will work on the macro (policy), meso (institutions) and micro (SMEs & producers) levels ensuring that interventions at the three levels are mutually supportive to ensure a focused impact level. Two main components:
- Supporting an enabling environment for job-rich sustainable growth;
- Supporting market opportunities for all through more efficient and competitive producers and processors.
Two cross-cutting themes will be gender equality and environmental sustainability.
On the micro level, the project focuses on identifying and developing high-added value green niche products in rural areas that have high trade potential. The main aim will be income generation, as well as employment generation.
The project designed based on principle of gender equality and women’s empowerment. The issue of lack of self-esteem among women and female entrepreneurs, in addition to barriers such as affordable access to finance make it more difficult for women entrepreneurs to start and maintain productive enterprises that ensure a sustainable income, as well as upward mobility.
The project implements direct targeted interventions for women entrepreneurs, which focuses on three different level:
- Positive role models of women entrepreneurs;
- Capacity development for women entrepreneurs;
- Access to technologies for women entrepreneurs.
Objectives and Scope
- The “Improving access of small and medium enterprises, especially women-led companies, to affordable innovative and inclusive financing and investment tools in Osh, Jalal-Abad, Naryn and IssykKul oblasts” project will provide support to establish and facilitate access to financial resources, as one of the most important conditions for the development of women entrepreneurship, increasing production capacity and revenue generation. This component of the Programme is one of the key approaches and foresees the following activity areas:
- Providing access to financial services and investments for women-led MSMEs in target regions;
- Developing capacity of non-governmental organization focused on innovative and inclusive financing and investment products and their services;
- The UNDP will support NGOs present in target regions to develop services to increase innovative financing and investments for women-led businesses, and subsequently contribute to gender economic empowerment and job creation of local population.
- After receiving grant resources from UNDP, it is assumed that the selected NGO will manage the hybrid financing for women-led SMEs in target regions. The entrepreneurs and SMEs will be selected by the Project Proposal Evaluation Committee (PPEC). PPEC will be responsible for: announcing the call for project proposals (business plans), informing the business community in target areas about investment opportunities, collecting of business ideas, reviewing and selecting the best business plans according to established criteria and providing business mentoring for target MSMEs.
- The selected NGO will conduct its own assessment and feasibility analysis considering assumptions and risks of COVID-19 in each target region and flexibility of implementation in terms of timeline and regional coverage, in accordance with their internal procedures of the recommended/selected by PPEC applications. This assessment includes at minimum a due diligence assessment (including labour rights), as well as an environmental and economic sustainability assessment. The NGO will act as an investment mechanism.
- In order to achieve this, UNDP will attract the NGO demonstrating strong capacity and experience working with SMEs and women. The NGO will be selected based on competitive process, which includes two stages:
- Review of applications and preliminary selection of NGOs (specialized in providing financial and investment tools); and
- Assessment of institutional, operational and market capacities of NGOs in managing funds, in provision of financing and investments, in developing capacity of recipients and final selection of the partner.
Expected Outcomes
- Improved access to affordable innovative and inclusive finance for the women-led enterprises engaged through the impact facility mechanism.
- Developed potential of NGO in providing innovative finance services. Indicators:
- At least 10 women-led SMEs in target regions received investments to expand their businesses · Profitability of supported businesses increased at least by 15%.
- 20% sales increase after 1 year of getting financing.
- 80 new decent jobs created, including at least 40 jobs for women.
- 20% income increase of employees.
- Innovative finance model is effective, sustainable and has a good potential for replication.
Funding Information
- As per this project, a grant of 150,000 USD is allocated, which should be used by NGO to provide financial and investment support to women-led SMEs in Osh, Djalal-Abad, Naryn and Issyk-Kul oblasts of the Kyrgyz Republic through:
- Development sustainable and inclusive financial products for women entrepreneurs by using hybrid financing in target regions of the project.
- Provision of affordable, innovative and inclusive financing and investments products for women entrepreneurs based on criteria developed for this grant proposal, namely better access to technologies for women entrepreneurs, jobs creation and income generation for population in rural areas;
- Provision of continued business mentoring and advisory support to women-led SMEs to ensure effective use of funds and sustainability of their business model;
- Monitoring the results/ impact of the different products with a special focus on decent jobs, livelihoods and trade turnover. This call aims to improve access to affordable inclusive finance for women-led SMEs through hybrid finance mechanisms, as well as providing support to NGO in improving innovative financial services, according to the attached Terms of Reference (TOR).
Duration
The duration is 18 months, from May 2020 to December 2021. The NGO will ensure that all services are completed by the end of December 2021.
Areas of Operations
Territorial coverage: Osh, Djalal-Abad, Issyk-Kul and Naryn regions.
Eligibility Criteria
Applications can be submitted by applicants meeting the following criteria:
- Legal status of civil society organization according to legislation of KR.
- Proven institutional capacity for investment and financing management, comprising a framework/system for undertaking business proposal evaluation, due diligence and appropriate governance, and risk management;
- Proof of financial resources management and systems, availability of investment portfolio;
- Capacity of key personnel in working with small organizations—including past experience in technical assistance and developing other organizations’ capacity including providing financing for MSMEs social service delivery, managing grants/investments, etc.;
- Capacity to assess and manage risk, including value building of companies in investment portfolio, safeguarding people and the environment from harm – availability of relevant policies/methodologies;
- Comprehensive methodology of organization of pre investment process and exit strategy relevant to developing markets including reaching potential recipients through solutions for remote access considering restrictions on meetings, mass gatherings and travel because of emergency situation on COVID-19;
- Methodology of innovative financing and investment for target group and target regions including templates for assessment eligibility of potential investment recipients, selection process and resource attraction for increasing portfolio. Methodology should be flexible in terms of timeframe and regional coverage of tasks implementation considering assumptions and risks of COVID-19 in each target region;
- Programmatic capacity, including competency for monitoring and evaluation;
Selection Criteria
The selection process will be held in two stages:
- Review of applications and preliminary selection of NGOs (specialized in providing financial and investment tools); and
- Assessment of institutional, operational and market capacities of NGOs in managing funds, in provision of financing and investments, in developing capacity of recipients and final selection of the partner.
For more information, visit https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=64993