UNCDF: Innovative Digital Solutions for Resilience of MSMEs Under COVID-19 Context in Ghana

Deadline: 30 April 2020

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is seeking applications for Innovative digital solutions for the resilience of MSMEs under COVID 19 context in Ghana.

(Ad) Are You Searching for Latest Grants, New Donors, Sample Proposals, Jobs and How to Apply Resources? fundsforNGOs Premium has all these and more at one place! Learn more.

The current Request for Application is framed under the workstream “inclusive innovation” and focuses on the six categories of digital services: (i) finance, (ii) agriculture, (iii) energy, (iv) education, (v) health and (vi) transport. Under this workstream, UNCDF will support local entrepreneurs and MSMEs to build inclusive digital services for the local economy, making sure that the value offered by digital services improves the livelihoods of those living within the market and is not spirited away by global platform providers.

In the COVID-19 context, and times of uncertainty about the duration and extent of confinement measures, UNCDF is looking forward to collaborating with private sector actors in Ghana, leveraging the power of digital technologies (applied to finance or not) to help MSMEs to:

(Ad) Stop getting irritated with excessing advertisements. View the information you want quickly on a clean, ad-free and exclusive Member Dashboard that offers tools to search for grants, view latest grant opportunities, upcoming deadlines, sample proposals, downloadable ebooks and also organize your favourites! Learn more.

streamline their existing distribution channels,
optimize their stock management,
build online and home delivery distribution channels,
integrate digital payments, and
leverage other digital solutions and apps for better efficiency and revenue generation.
Those solutions will allow MSMEs to sustain lower levels of activity during the confinement period and prepare them to better exploit opportunities in the “post-COVID 19 digital economies”.

The non-exhaustive following list of solutions would fit the objective of this CFA:

(Ad) Are you still finding it difficult to search for donors online? Join Premium and use our powerful Donor Search mechanism to find relevant donors based on your country and location or keyword. Our specially developed algorithm will search across the internet for the most relevant and useful donors of your interest willing to fund your work. Learn more.

Online shops for MSMEs (transition to e-commerce)
Home delivery pack services for MSMEs
Digital platform to provide instant credit lines to DFS agents, super agents and merchants
Home Cash-in/cash-out services
Pre-sales e-vouchers for MSMEs
Assistance to MSMEs to transit to e-money acceptance (transition to DFS merchants)
Income protection mobile insurance for MSMEs
Salary payments via electronic means
UNCDF intends to select 1 to 3 solution providers that can prove their abilities to quickly scaleup their solutions to address a significant number of formal or informal MSMEs, achieve short term results, and document their achievements.

Funding Information

(Ad) Not able to keep track of so may different grant opportunities and their deadlines? No problem! fundsforNGOs Premium has a handy tool called “Deadline Calendar.” This tool will help you keep track of all upcoming grant opportunities and their deadlines and view them in a beautiful calendar format. Learn more.

The available budget can range from US$ 10,000 to US$ 200,000 depending on the maturity of the solutions, the innovativeness of the solution proposed, the potential impact on number of MSMEs improved, the capacity of the applicant to manage the grant and/or the technical assistance.

UNCDF will provide a contribution between US$ 10,000 to US$ 30,000 in grant and/or technical assistance services to the selected applicants that have completed a Market Size/Competitive Analysis (Total Available Market, Serviceable Available Market, Serviceable Obtainable Market Study), have terminated the analysis of the problem statement and validated the potential solution through market researches, consumer test and low-fidelity minimum viable products.
UNCDF will provide a contribution between US$ 30,000 to US$ 50,000 in grant and/or technical assistance services to the selected applicants that have already tested and validated the MVP and or services and they are validating their revenue models.
UNCDF will provide a contribution between US$ 30,000 to US$ 200,000 in grant and/or technical assistance services to the selected applicants that have completed a Market Size/Competitive Analysis (TAM, SAM, SOM Study), have prototyped High-Fidelity Minimum Viable Product, Validated Value Delivery (Left Side of Canvas), identify and Validate Metrics That Matter.
Duration

(Ad) Are you looking for readymade proposals? fundsforNGOs Premium has a vast collection of Sample Proposals from successful grantees around the world. These proposals are available for viewing so that you can quickly get new ideas, best practices, lessons learned and develop your proposal in the perfect manner. Learn more.

The maximum date for the full project completion is December 31st, 2020.

Language

(Ad) How to raise funds? Where can I find a list of donors for my area of work? How to write proposals? How can I submit a grant request to USAID, the European Commission or the Gates Foundation? How can I use Social Media to promote my work? We have developed powerful resources in the form of Ebook and Articles covering all this information and more. Learn more.

The products to be delivered, as well as all related correspondence exchanged by the organization and UNCDF, must be written in English.

Eligibility Criteria

In accordance with the focus area of application, the applicant shall be properly constituted and registered in Ghana;
The applicant must operate in Ghana for at least one year;
The applicants must have at least a minimum viable product (MVP) or a full-fledged product in the market that addresses the problem statement;
The candidate must have audited financial statements for at least the last year;
Do not be in state of repair or have been the subject of a bankruptcy, liquidation, a legal settlement, a backup, a cessation of activity or any other similar situation arising a similar procedure;
Do not be on the UN financial sanctions list, particularly in the fight against the financing of terrorism and against the threats to peace and international security;
Having fulfilled obligations relating to the payment of social security contributions or obligations relating to the payment of taxes in accordance with legal provisions in force in Ghana.
For more information, visit https://www.uncdf.org/article/5561/rfa-innovative-digital-solutions-for-the-resilience-of-msmes-under-covid-19-context-in-ghana