RFAs: Provision of Business Development Services to Micro and Small Agribusinesses in Uganda

This project is funded by the Mastercard Foundation with the ultimate objective of creating job opportunities for 90,500 youth in rural Uganda. The project aims to create decent work and business growth opportunities, to increase financial inclusion through a combination of capacity strengthening strategies in the agricultural sector in Uganda.

The intervention seeks to target youth, women, and refugees who belong to farmer groups, apex farmer organizations, MSEs, as well as individuals who aspire to become entrepreneurs in micro and small agri-businesses or associated market systems. The intervention seeks to equip the target group with knowledge, skills, and startup capital; accelerate the adoption of technology, especially digital solutions; create or increase demand and supply of inputs, outputs, services (e.g., finance), and skilled labor; and provide technical assistance and influence national and subnational institutions to improve the inclusiveness, efficiency, safety, and resilience of agri-food systems.

Scope Of Work

• This intervention is one of three RFAs launched under the collaboration between UNCDF and WFP-AMS which’ goal is: Youth, women and refugees receive BDS and entrepreneurship support.
• The objectives of this RFA are:
  • Smallholder farmer (SHF) enterprises and MSEs by youth, women, refugees, have increased entrepreneurship skills and business management capacity to develop and sustain businesses.
  • Business development services (BDS) and entrepreneurship organizations have improved capacity to support youth, women, refugees, SHF enterprises and MSEs in target locations. The programme includes technical assistance to BDS providers to review, enhance and customize the BDS curriculum and its delivery mechanism to best suit the needs and peculiarities of the target participants.
• UNCDF is looking for partners (such as private sector actors, NGOs, e-learning platforms), or other entities that have expertise in BDS and can deploy innovative methodologies in the development, digitization and delivery of them. These solutions will be aimed at improving the business performance of the MSEs in the project target regions. The BDS providers should be ready to improve, customize and digitize their BDS content and delivery mechanisms.
• A data driven approach should be adopted by the selected partner to measure and track the number of MSEs supported with BDS services, their improved performance, business operations and ability to create more jobs. This approach should include relevant metrics and indicators that allow for easy visibility of progress and impact, facilitating linkages to providers of financial services and effective project monitoring and evaluation.
• These solutions should address specific needs and challenges for agribusiness MSEs and promote their financial health and financial inclusion. The solution should address skills gaps like:
  • Records Management
  • Marketing
  • Saving
  • Financial Literacy
  • Extension & Agro advisory
  • Input efficiency
  • Business skills
  • Technology usage
• The partner will actively engage in knowledge- sharing and dissemination activities, documenting best practices, lessons learned and success stories. This will contribute to building a knowledge base that can benefit other stakeholders interested in improving and scaling business development skilling, digital and financial literacy of refugees for resilience and self-sustainability.
• The outcomes for this project are:
  • SHF enterprises and MSEs by youth, women and refugees have increased entrepreneurship skills and business management capacity to develop and sustain businesses.
  • BDS and entrepreneurship organizations have improved capacity to support youth, women, refugees SHF enterprises and MSEs in target locations.

Areas of Intervention

For this request for applications (RFA), UNCDF invites applications from registered entities that can offer innovative and scalable solutions addressing one or more of the following challenges through the following areas of intervention.

• Area 1: Improvement, Adaptation and digitization of BDS curriculum
  • Challenge: Centralized BDS is less efficient and effective in providing sustained business training, there is a need to improve, adapt and digitize the BDS curriculum to suit the target demographic and the added layer of proximity.
  • Solution: The adaption of the BDS curriculum, delivery methods and business models will leverage human centered development approach to tailor the service to the specific circumstances of the targeted participants with considerations for low literacy levels, rural settings, gender aspects, etc.
  • Objective for the solution: The aim is to add content on aspects of basic financial and digital literacy and foundational BDS training to the BDS curriculum and package it in a scalable way for future replication and uniformity
• Area 2: Provision of BDS to micro and small agribusinesses which are youth, women and refugee led in the West Nile, Northern Uganda, Karamoja and Southwestern regions
  • Challenge: Most of the agribusiness MSEs that are youth, women and refugee led are not equipped with the right business skills to foster growth and sustainability of their businesses.
  • Solution: Provide a BDS using business acceleration approach – with two phases:
    • an intense bootcamp providing universal business growth skills and adoption of business enhancing digital solutions; and
    • an extended business coaching phase customized to each type of business and its growth potential.
  • Objective for the solution: The boot camp phase (specialized BDS training) will mainly focus on providing the businesses with foundations for running and growing a business efficiently and effectively while creating the needed business records that enable the businesses to unlock financing. As such the training will include content around business planning, understanding your market and customer (market research, targeting, positioning), marketing your products / services (value proposition, branding, go to market tactics), business management (sales, inventory, sourcing, distribution), financial management (record keeping, budgeting, basic accounting, etc.), and financial services (working with financial service providers, loan management, creating a credit history, and digital financial services).
  • The second phase – 6 months of localized BDS – will focus on providing hands on coaching to select businesses to ensure they are applying the acquired skills from the bootcamp and making them work for the particular business types and their projected business growth plans. The target businesses for this phase will have developed business plans which will be based on accessing financing. The objective of this deeper and personalized BDS will therefore be to support the businesses achieve the projected business growth plan.

Budget

• UNCDF contributions may range from 1,080,000,000 UGX (Uganda Shillings, approx. US$300,000) to 1,360,000,000 UGX (Uganda Shillings approx. US$380,000).
• The overall duration of UNCDF support for the successful applicant will be up to end of September 2026.

Geographical Scope: The solutions proposed shall focus on Northern, Southwestern, Karamoja and West Nile regions of Uganda.

Target Segment: The project will target Smallholder Farmer Enterprises and MSEs by youth, women and refugees in Northern, Southwestern, Karamoja and West Nile regions of Uganda.

Eligibility Requirements

• Entity registration (mandatory)
  • The applicant/lead applicant must be a registered entity duly incorporated and registered according to the rules of Uganda (it can be for-profit, non-for profit, NGO, or any other type of legal entity).
  • The lead applicant must be registered entities with at least five years of operations.
  • Applicant (s) should have the ability to operate in the targeted regions of Northern, Southwestern, West Nile and Karamoja.
  • Applicant (s) should have audited financial statements for at least the last 3 years.
• Consortiums (When applicable)
  • Applicants can apply only once under this RFA, whether independently or in a consortium.
  • Joint applications between market players are acceptable if the solution proposed will expand delivery networks and promote rural and/or other last-mile access to inclusive finance solutions for the targeted beneficiaries.
  • Applications from consortiums of organizations must show that the partnership was established prior to this call for applications.
  • The lead applicant and their partner must be registered entities with at least five years of operations and have statutory accounts and audited financial statements for at least 3 operating years.
• Relevant operation licenses (when applicable)
  • The applicant must be certified to provide business development and financial literacy skilling/ digital skills expertise.
• Solutions to be supported
  • Applicants must have an existing BDS curriculum that can be customized to suit the target population’s needs.
  • The applicant /lead applicant shall be ready to disseminate the curriculum in the targeted locations.
• Project funding
  • Applicants must contribute at least 15 per cent of the project cash costs.

For more information, visit UNCDF.