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(applications open 08 August 2023

The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s 46 least developed countries (LDCs). With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers ‘last mile’ finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development.

UNCDF leverages digital finance in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve the vision of promoting inclusive digital economies. On that basis, the Inclusive Digital Economies Practice Area (IDE) of UNCDF adopted the strategy of ‘Leave No One Behind in the Digital Era’, which is based on over a decade of experience in digital finance in Africa, Asia and the Pacific. The goal of UNCDF is to empower millions of people by 2025 to use digital services, which improve their quality of life and accelerate our progress towards sustainable development goals (SDGs) and offer partnerships in innovative financing.

To expand financial services by using partnership and technology to enhance the reach and quality of agent networks, UNCDF welcomes institutions operating in Ethiopia. The partner that will be selected should be a registered entity in Ethiopia as described under the eligibility section of this document. Organizations that are applying to this RFA, other than Financial institution (FI), as defined by the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), should apply in consortium with FIs to be considered in this RFA. If the lead applicant is other than a FI, the lead applicant should attach a commitment letter, document, or a legal agreement that they are able to submit all the required deliverables report in a disaggregated manner. If the application is in consortium the partnership should have happened before the issuance of this RFA or the agreement should be signed before the launch of the project.

The project has two areas of intervention :

• Access: Increased access to financial services through enhanced reach and quality of agents by using innovative technology and partnerships.
• Usage: Usage of innovative services that are beyond payment creating resilience for clients and agents with new use cases.

UNCDF has availed from 200,000 to a maximum of 250,000 US dollars per each grant depending on the investment readiness, level, and outreach potential of the solution proposed and plans to award up to three grantees. Out of the total cost, the selected applicant is expected to cover a minimum of 30% (thirty percent) of the project costs. When submitting the proposal, applications need to indicate the areas of intervention clearly and the expected result of the project. Innovative technologies and partnerships enhance reach and quality of agent (Cash In Cash Out /CICO/) networks at a larger scale and proposals with additional interventions/objectives are encouraged while keeping them within the framework of this RFA.

The selected applicant(s) will sign a Performance-Based Agreement (PBA) with UNCDF. Please refer to the PBA samples available on this RFA website.

Inquiries to this request for applications may be submitted by email to uncdf.rfa@uncdf.org cc endashaw.tesfaye@uncdf.org.

All applications must be submitted by 23:59 (EDT time zone), August 28 2023, in UNCDF’s e-investment platform