Nigerian Women’s Investing SME Investment Window

Deadline: November 1st 2023 | Nigerian Women’s Investing SME Investment Window

Apply for the SME Investment Window, a part of the Global Affairs Canada (GAC)-funded Investing in Women in Nigeria (IIW-Nigeria) programme, which is worth CAN $15.7 million.

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This fund’s component is made up of non-repayable grants worth CAN $7.75 million.

Implemented by the AECF, the programme intends to increase women’s economic empowerment by boosting women’s engagement in the traditional and non-traditional agriculture sectors.

The initiative aims to:

• Increase the participation of women in the private sector as economic actors along the major value chains in agriculture.
• Boost funding for women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and other companies that give women access to the workforce from both the public and private sectors.
• Minimise the structural disparities in gender that prevent women from effectively engaging in the economy of climate-smart agriculture.

Financial Goals

• Financing should be made available to small and medium-sized businesses and financial institutions that employ cutting-edge technology and other creative approaches to give women access to gender-transforming, climate-smart economic opportunities. Examples of these include the creation of jobs, market connections, and suppliers of inputs, produce, and services along the value chain.
• Give firms specialised technical assistance for business development and capacity building in gender mainstreaming.
• The business case for investing in women in Kano should be promoted and made more widely known.
• By offering incentives for new ideas, you may encourage the agriculture industry to adopt climate-smart practises on a long-term basis and make businesses and the women they employ more resilient to climate shocks.

Sectors

• In order to be eligible, businesses must show that their products and services are both gender- and climate-appropriate, that they are easily available and reasonably priced, and that they directly assist women and young women in their endeavours.
• Any segment of the value chain may be covered by proposed projects, but in order to qualify for financing, they must show an intention to solve the structural issues that prevent women from participating more fully in agricultural markets. Examples of appealing business models include, but are not limited to:
• Market aggregators who give women or women-owned businesses new and dependable market alternatives to boost their earnings and profitability.
• Information and media companies offer traditional and digital venues for women and women-owned businesses to access market information services.
• Services related to markets, finance, technology, and information that connect companies in the value chain to the goods and services provided by women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises.
• Processors, manufacturing firms, market intermediaries, and/or companies that create jobs are the ones who give women access to the economy by hiring them, providing produce and services throughout the value chain, and providing jobs.
• Models of production and distribution that encourage women’s groups and SMEs to flourish locally inside Kano’s agricultural value chains.
• Business strategies that offer incentives to women so they may access and utilise more climate-smart and environmentally friendly solutions and technologies.
• Models of business that take climate-smart technologies and solutions into account at the levels of home, production, transportation, and processing in value chains.
• Companies in the information technology sector offer digital platforms to link actors throughout value chains for access to inputs, to markets, or to finance.
• Solutions with connections to several levels of value chains in agriculture.

Funding

• Investees may apply for a variety of financial sources according to the stage of their development as follows:
• The minimum reward amount, CAN $65,000
• The maximum prize amount, CAN $1,300,000.
• The funding will come from grants that are not repaid.
• The funding arrangement has a four-year duration.

Optimal Socioeconomic Results

• Business models need to show how they achieve and maintain social impact in the marketplaces where they are intended to operate.
• To be more precise, this refers to the number of households that the good, service, or combination of both serves, improvements in women’s income, inclusivity of women, stimulation of market growth, and engagement of women-owned/led micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the target value chains of the SMEs.
• Companies should specify their approach to address the following:
• Involve women in the organization’s management, particularly young women.
• practises that are inclusive of all genders in their operations (such as women-centered design and the gathering of gendered data).
• Benefits to women that can be seen in the form of more time for other pursuits, better health, less drudgery, and more spending power in the home.
• Women-led supply chains show how women, particularly young women, are involved in micro and small businesses as important players in the supply chain and show how there may be chances for these businesses to develop into SMEs.
• Qualitative measures of women’s empowerment, such as the possession of assets, loan availability, and the utilisation of current women’s development networks to expand access to climate-smart technologies in rural and periurban areas.
• Showcase a well-defined end-user system or plan that makes better climate-smart practises, technologies, and services accessible to target groups with low or irregular incomes.
• Projects have to be ecologically friendly, and it’s especially urged to promote climate-smart solutions. Where necessary, environmental impact assessments and mitigation plans that have been approved by the relevant regulatory bodies must be obtained.
• Companies must show that they support sustainable development outcomes in their target markets and communities throughout the funding period.

Location and Area of Interest

• Funding is available for privately held, women-led SMEs that operate commercially in Kano’s agricultural value chains and have a track record of connecting with other women entrepreneurs in those same value chains.
• Financing will go to agricultural value chains that show a high level of female involvement and effect.

Qualification Standards

The following requirements must be fulfilled by private sector businesses in order to qualify for funding:

• Establish a private sector business that is in line with the focal areas, such as the geographic reach of agricultural value chains.
• Businesses must show that they employ women, offer goods and services that help female farmers and agrobusiness owners, include women as raw material suppliers in their supply chain, and/or include women as a significant/dominant portion of their product and service distribution.
• Showcase female ownership or a management team led primarily by women, and use a business strategy that offers women transformative advantages.
• Businesses must offer their business plans and pledges to enhance the proportion of women in leadership roles, as well as in roles as suppliers, distributors, and employees. They should also take proactive measures to remove any obstacles that prevent women from joining climate-smart agriculture value chains.
• Be the one to advocate for funding for cutting-edge, climate-smart products or business models that empower women at every stage of the agricultural value chain and increase their resilience to shocks from the environment.
• Possess the ability to demonstrate a commitment to matching AECF money using the ratios listed in the section below on matching contributions.
• Make a grant funding request within the allotted budget.
• Respect all applicable fundamental rules and regulations, particularly those pertaining to tax compliance.
• Respect labour laws, human rights, and environmental management regulations.
• Demonstrate dedication to gender equality and the empowerment of women, especially young women, in the running of the business.
• be physically formed and legally registered in Nigeria, and at the time of application, the business must have been in operation for at least two (2) complete accounting years.

For more information, visit Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund (AECF).