The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity has opened applications for the second phase to fund SMEs across Africa.
Following the success of first phase, the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity ,a new, seven-year, US$ 126 million Fund was established in 2023 aimed to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across the agriculture, climate adaptation, and digital economy sectors in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Fund’s objective is to support SMEs in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This will ensure a distribution of SME-based solutions that can sustainably create dignified and fulfilling work for young men and women, young people with disabilities and refugee youth even after the end of the program.
The countries are Benin, Burundi, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia.
The first phase was the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity, an eight-year program established in 2014. That Fund supported 38 participants from 15 countries in Africa innovating and scaling financial products and services targeting the rural population with a large focus on agriculture.
One major highlight is the Fund enabled over 5.3 million people to have access to financial products and services, exceeding an initial target of 1 million.
Eligibility Requirements
Each challenge fund sector is different. However, all challenges will seek proposals from SMEs that are innovative, commercially viable, and that will create dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young women and men, young people with disabilities or refugee youth. In each challenge, applicants will be required to meet certain criteria.
Selection will be based on applications meeting a certain threshold of the Fund selection criteria. Read more about this on the specific challenge page.
Interventions
The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity aims to address a broad spectrum of SME-specific challenges as well as macro issues using four interventions:
Challenge Fund
Offering direct financial support through a challenge fund to address the resource flow barriers faced by SMEs looking to scale-up and, in turn, create and sustain employment opportunities for young women and men.
Connect Fund
Providing investor readiness support to the SMEs and negotiating of partnerships with potential financiers to ensure sustainability and growth.
Technical Assistance (TA)
Adding value beyond financial support through technical assistance and capacity building to address the barriers concerning human capital and access to markets.
Convening and influencing
