Open Call for Grant for Circular Food MSMEs in AfriFOODlinks Hub Cities

Description

The Circular Food MSME grant from the AfriFOODlinks will allow MSMEs to develop a particular aspect of their business over a period of up to 12 months. The Grants will be released in tranches determined by the Selection Committee and written into the grant agreement of the grantee with the AfriFOODlinks implementing partner. A final report will be submitted at the end of the program by the grantee. The reports will be assessed by someone within the AfriFOODlinks consortium allocated by the Selection Committee. The assessment will be able to request additional information from the grantees or to make changes to their work in order to respect the agreed concept that constituted the application.

Beneficiary & submission

Submission: The Open Call for Grant Financing for Circular Food MSMEs is an opportunity created under the AfriFOODlinks project which is sponsored by the European Commission. The Open Call for Grant Financing for Circular Food MSMEs will focus on the 5 AfriFOODlinks Hub Cities of Mbale (Uganda), Kisumu (Kenya), Cape Town (South Africa), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and Tunis (Tunisia), aiming to give grants to up to 15 applicants in each city. The purpose of these grants is to financially support pioneering MSMEs (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) in each hub city. The Grant aims to improve the MSMEs circularity, internal processes and the capabilities required to meet market demands for healthy and nutritious diets. The grant support is envisioned to facilitate the access to other private funding by attracting private finance (loan, equity) as part of a blended finance approach. To apply, applicants must have attended and participated in the AfriFOODlinks incubation and training programs (WP3, T3.2) in their Hub City. All Open Call applications must meet the eligibility criteria outlined on the Guide to Application. For the application process, all applicants must submit a complete application form online with the respective required supporting documents including the Declaration of Honour signed. During the contracting phase the recipients of the Grant must supply the following documents: Bank account information and confirmation letter, Sub-grant agreement which will follow the structure of the template accessible on the application website. All applications for the AfriFOODlinks Call for Grant Financing for Circular Food MSMEs must be done in English for the Cities of Mbale (Uganda), Kisumu (Kenya) and Cape Town (South Africa) and in French for the Cities of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and Tunis (Tunisia). Submissions done in other languages for each Hub City will be considered ineligible and will not be evaluated. The submission of all grant applications for the Open Call must be done on the AfriFOODlinks website: https://afrifoodlinks.org/grants-for-food-smes/. The website will have separate links for each City application. Applications received through any other channel will be deemed ineligible. All information about the Open Call can be found on the AfriFOODlinks website, on the section dedicated to the Open Call. Evaluation After the AfriFOODlinks Open Call for Circular Food MSMEs is closed, an eligibility check will be carried out by the Selection Committee of each Hub City. This process will discard applications that don’t match the eligibility criteria. Following the eligibility check, the Selection Committee will be composed of 3 individuals from the AfriFOODlinks Consortium responsible for implementing T3.5 in each city. The process will have oversight by at least 3 members of the project Executive Board, to ensure that it has been objective, and the final selections will be validated and approved by the Executive Board.  The evaluation criteria will cover: Impact 20% (maximum score 4 points): Alignment with the goal of AfriFOODlinks to increase access to healthy, safe and nutritious food in the Hub City through circular business models that focus on: Production of healthy and nutritious foods; Processing healthy and nutritious food products; Trading, distribution and marketing of healthy and nutritious foods and food products; Reducing food waste; and Production and trading of organic inputs. Excellence 35% (maximum score 7 points): A well-defined problem, clear market opportunity, promising circular business model with an existing customer base and a viable product or service. Implementation 35% (maximum score 7 points): A compelling business plan that: shows high-potential for contributing to circular economy transitions in the food system and social benefit and shows the potential to grow measured either through staff or profitability within 5 years. A convincing demonstration of how the business will deploy the funds to grow their business and impact to support the applicants work and not primarily benefit the beneficiaries.    Extra points scheme: Once the total evaluation score for each proposal is calculated, an applicant may obtain up to 2 extra points (10%): - Applicant business is youth majority owned or has a clear benefit targeting youth (1 point) - Applicant business is women majority owned or has a clear benefit targeting women (1 point)

Further information

To ensure a fair process of selection for the grants being awarded to small businesses associated with the AfriFOODlinks incubation project, and to increase the impact of the project, one Open Call as part of the Cascade Fund and FSTP mechanism will be launched. This grant will benefit Circular Food MSMEs to improve their circularity, internal processes and the capabilities required to meet market demands for healthy and nutritious diets. The goal of this Open Call is to provide financial support to up to 75 Circular Food MSMEs (up to 15 per Hub City) with grants ranging between €1,000 and €50,000 each with a total of €50,000 available per City, or €250,000 available for the collective grant.