Investing in Women in Nigeria: SME Investment Window

This element of the fund comprises non-repayable grants totalling CAN $7.75m.

Implemented by the AECF, the programme seeks to enhance women’s economic empowerment by promoting women’s participation in the traditional and non-traditional agribusiness sectors.

The programme seeks to:

• Enhance private sector engagement of women as economic actors across the key agricultural value chains.
• Increase private and public sector investment in women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) as well as other businesses that create economic opportunities for women.
• Reduce systemic gender inequalities that hinder women’s effective economic participation in climate smart agriculture.

Fund Objectives

• Provide finance for small and medium-sized enterprises and finance institutions that use innovative technologies and other novel solutions to create gender-transforming, climate-smart economic opportunities for women, e.g., through employment creation, market linkages, suppliers of inputs/produce/services along the value chain.
• Provide targeted business development technical assistance and capacity building on gender mainstreaming for businesses.
• Advocate and increase awareness of the business case for investing in women in Kano.
• Provide incentives for innovations that will lead to sustainable widespread adoption of climate-smart practices in the agriculture sector and increase the resilience of both companies and the women that they work with to climate shocks.

Sectors

• Eligible businesses must demonstrate that their offerings are accessible and affordable, directly benefit women and young women, and encourage the adoption of climate and gender appropriate technologies, products, or services.
• Proposed initiatives can cover any part of the value chain but must demonstrate an ambition to address systemic challenges that keep women from more effectively engaging in agricultural markets to be eligible for funding. Examples of business models that will be attractive include (but are not limited to):
  • Market aggregators who provide reliable and new market opportunities for women or women-owned enterprises to increase their profits and incomes.
  • Information and media companies providing market information services to women and women-owned enterprises through traditional and digital platforms.
  • Electronic/technology services (markets, finance, technology, and knowledge) linking value chain actors to the products and services of women-owned SMEs.
  • Processors and/or manufacturing companies and/or market agents creating economic opportunities for women through employment creation and/or as suppliers of produce/services along the value chain and employees.
  • Production and distribution models that support local entrepreneurship and growth of SMEs and women groups within the agricultural value chains in Kano.
  • Business models that provide incentives for women to access and adopt improved use of environmentally friendly and climate-smart solutions and technologies.
  • Business models that address climate-smart solutions and technologies at the household, production, transportation and processing levels in value chains.
  • Information Technology companies providing digital platforms to create linkages between actors across value chains for Access to Inputs, Access to Market and or Access to Finance.
  • Solutions that have linkages to multiple layers of agricultural value chains.

Funds Available

• Investees can apply for a range of funding depending on their development stage as follows:
  • Minimum fund award CAN $ 65,000
  • Maximum fund award CAN $ 1,300,000
• Funding will be in the form of non-repayable grants.
• Duration of the funding agreement: 4 years.

Desired Socio-Economic Impact

• Business models must demonstrate how they deliver and sustain social impact in their target markets. Specifically, this means the number of households served by the product, service or a combination of both, improvements in women’s income, inclusivity of women, stimulation of market growth, and engagement of women -owned/led micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the target value chains of the SMEs.
• Companies should articulate their strategy to meet the following:
  • Include women, especially young women, in the management of the organization.
  • Gender-inclusive practices in their operations (e.g., women-centered design and collection of gendered data).
  • Demonstrable benefits to women in terms of increased time available for other activities, improved health, reduced drudgery, and increased household spending power.
  • Women-led supply chains; demonstrate the engagement of women, especially young women, in micro and small enterprises as key actors within the supply chain and potential opportunities for such women-led micro-enterprises to grow into SMEs.
  • Qualitative indicators around women empowerment (e.g., ability to own assets; access to credit, use of existing women development structures to increase access to climate-smart technologies in the rural and peri-urban communities).
  • Demonstrate a clear end-user mechanism/ strategy that enables target communities with low/irregular incomes to access improved climate-smart technology, practices, and services.
  • Projects must be environmentally friendly, with the promotion of climate smart solutions particularly encouraged. Environmental impact assessments and mitigation measures approved by pertinent regulatory authorities must be obtained where required.
  • Throughout the funding life, companies must demonstrate that they promote sustainable development outcomes in their target communities and market.

Geography and Focus Area

• Funding is available for private sector women owned/led SMEs that are commercially active in agricultural value chains in Kano with demonstrated linkages to women entrepreneurs operating in agricultural value chains in Kano.
• Funding will target agricultural value chains that demonstrate high engagement and impact for women.

Eligibility Criteria

To be eligible for funding, private sector companies must meet the following criteria:

• Be a private sector enterprise that is aligned with the focus areas, i.e., geographical scope within agricultural value chains.
• Companies must demonstrate that they employ women, provide products and services that benefit women farmers and agro-business entrepreneurs, include women in their supply chain as suppliers of raw materials, and/or include women as distributors of products and services, in a substantial/dominant manner.
• Demonstrate female ownership or have a management that is predominantly women led, with a business model that delivers transformational benefits for women.
• Companies must demonstrate business models and commitments to increasing women’s representation as employees, customers, distributors and/or suppliers and proactively address barriers to women’s participation in climate smart agricultural value chains.
• Be proposing investment for innovative and climate smart technologies or business solutions that are gender transformative for women across agricultural value chains and improve resilience to climate shocks.
• Be able to show commitment to match AECF funding based on the ratios stated in matching contributions section below.
• Request grant funding within the stipulated range.
• Be compliant with fundamental laws and regulations in-country, including tax compliance laws.
• Be compliant with human rights, labour standards, and environmental management laws.
• Demonstrate commitment to gender equality and the empowerment of women, especially young women, in the conduct of the business.
• Be legally registered and physically established in Nigeria and must have operated for a period of not less than two (2) full accounting years at the time of application.

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