Deadline : 31-Mar-2023

The Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) is launching a Call for Proposals to select viable and scalable digital financial solution (DFS) initiatives aimed at fostering access, quality, and usage of financial services as drivers of sustainable financial inclusion, especially among the most vulnerable, including women, youth and small businesses.

The Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI) aims to remove barriers to the growth and use of digital financial solutions to accelerate financial inclusion in Africa. The facility works through three main pillars, namely

• Digital infrastructure
• Policy and regulation
• Products and innovation with gender inclusion and capacity building as cross-cutting themes.

Pillars

• Pillar 1: Digital financial infrastructure
  • Country level – Technical assistance on interoperability of payment systems, agent networks and merchant acceptance networks; digital registries and alternative credit scoring, increased mobile network coverage, affordable data and digital devices.
  • Regional level – Technical assistance on interoperability of payment systems, interoperable payment distribution networks, and e-commerce platforms.
• Pillar 2: Digital Financial Policy & regulation
  • Country level – Sandboxing/Fintech innovations of policies or testing new digital products and business models; Interoperability regulatory frameworks; and consumer protection, e.g., data privacy, recourse mechanisms, cybersecurity.
  • Regional level – DFS policies and regulations for cross-border remittances; consumer protection, e.g., data privacy, recourse mechanisms, cybersecurity; Sandbox policies and testing of new products and business models and e-KYC.
• Pillar 3: Digital Financial Products & innovation
  • Country level – Digitization of government payments and social transfers; and digitization of agriculture value chains and MSMEs.
  • Regional level – DFS products that have the potential for scale in more than one country, address the needs of the base of the pyramid and touch key sectors such as MSME and agriculture.

Funding Information

• Funding Allocation
  • Maximum size of grant funding under Lot 1 (country level): USD 1 million
  • Maximum for blended finance of grant and loan under Lot 1: USD 1.5 million
  • Maximum size of grant under Lot 2 (regional level): USD 1.5 million
  • Minimum size of loan under Lot 1 and Lot 2: USD 1 million
• Project Duration
  • Country-level projects: two to three years
  • Regional-level projects: three to four years.

Areas of Interventions

• The Call for Proposals is aligned with ADFI’s pillars of intervention and has the following two components:
  • Lot 1 targeting the following countries: Algeria, Angola, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Guinea, Morocco, Nigeria and Tanzania
  • Lot 2 targeting regional initiatives.

Eligibility Criteria

• Eligible entities include central banks, government ministries, departments and agencies; international agencies; bank and non-bank financial service providers; regional economiccommunities, regional coordination bodies andprivate sector institutions with regional operations.

• Proposals must be submitted by entities registered in regional and non-regional member states of the African Development Bank. Ideally, project recipients and sponsors should be African-based or demonstrate evidence of partnership with Africa based entities for the proposed investments.
• Applications from consortia, partnerships or joint ventures are eligible, with the primary/lead being an Africa-based institution. The proposal should specify the lead partner/applicant who will be acting on behalf of the other companies as well as the role of each party and proof of the partnership agreement.
• Applicants from the private sector must provide proof of legal registration and be in existence for at least five years with at least three years of effective operations
• Loan applicants must demonstrate profitability and positive cash flows over the last three years and provide three year audited accounts.
• Public sector projects should strive to be consistent with national and/or regional priorities in order to maximise the likelihood of buy-in and support from the authorities.
• To the extent possible, projects should not duplicate other projects already underway through other vehicles unless a clear business case demonstrating additionality is established.

Evaluation Criteria

• Project viability
• Applicant’s expertise and track record in relation to the proposed project
• Ability to scale
• Potential impact of the project.

For more information, visit ADFI.