Advancing Women’s Empowerment Fund 2021 for Women-led African Businesses

In partnership with USAID, ANDE is thrilled to announce another round of AWEF funding.

Application Deadline: 5th March 2021

About the Award: In this round, ANDE seeks to fund projects that will pilot, test, or expand scalable solutions to the financing gap for women-led SGBs in eastern, western, and southern Africa to create learnings and insights for uptake by the broader SGB sector. ANDE intends to support a minimum of three applications for this round, from a total funding pool of USD $450,000. Submissions should be for activities of up to 12 months with a total request of between $50,000- $150,000.

Type: Grants

Eligibility: ANDE seeks concept notes to pilot, test, or expand scalable solutions that tackle the financing gap for women-led SGBs in eastern, western, and southern Africa to generate knowledge and proven solutions
that can be replicated and scaled by the broader SGB sector. ANDE is specifically focused on submissions catalyzing early-stage, growth-oriented capital.

We encourage submissions employing creative solutions to both supply and demand components of the gender financing gap and that fit any of the following categories:

• Gender transformative approaches to delivering acceleration services including recruitment, selection, cohort and program design, or other elements seen as constraints to the success of women entrepreneurs.
• Supplemental services delivered independently or in coordination with traditional accelerator programs, including tailored consulting services, bespoke matchmaking, investment facilitation, mentorship, or other approaches to address gender deficits in traditional acceleration.
• Novel approaches to catalyzing investment into the hands of women fund managers to address the systemic finance constraints that women entrepreneurs encounter.
• Innovative methods for sensitizing and influencing SGB support providers around the fundamental challenges (family life, social norms, talent opportunities) that women entrepreneurs face.

SGB service providers with proposed projects in only the following eligible countries will be considered:

• Western Africa: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Ghana, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo.
• Eastern Africa: Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda
• Southern Africa: Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia,
  South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia, and Zimbabwe

ANDE will award a minimum of one project per region with a total funding pool of $150,000 per region.

Selection Criteria:

Clarity: Is there a clear understanding of the problem this fund seeks to address? Are solution objectives, as well as justification of the proposed solution, clearly articulated?

Feasibility and Internal Capacity: How is feasibility articulated for the objectives outlined?
Has the organization demonstrated its ability to achieve the milestones laid
out in the concept note?

Impact: Does the proposed model clearly address a barrier to the financing gap for women-led SGBs in eastern Africa, western Africa, or southern Africa?
Does the concept note present a credible rationale for why this model is
likely to be successful?

Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning: Is the key learning question(s) clearly articulated?
Are prospective plans for learning dissemination articulated?
To what extent will lessons on what works well from this project inform the
work of SGB service providers and investors?

Eligible Countries: countries in eastern, western, and southern Africa

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value& Duration of Award: Submissions should be for activities of up to 12 months with a total request of between $50,000- $150,000.

How to Apply: Prospective applications must submit a concept note by March 5, 2021. Shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit a full application. Applicants may send questions to ande.membership@aspeninstitute.org with reference “AWEF 2021”.

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.
• GOODLUCK

Visit Award Webpage for Details