The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity is the second phase of a program from theMastercard Foundation. The first phase was the Fund for Rural Prosperity, an eight-year program established in 2014. That Fund supported 38 participants from 15 countries in Africa to innovate and scale up financial products and services targeting rural populations with a large focus on smallholder farmers. One major highlight is the Fund enabled over 5.3 million people to have better access to financial products and services, exceeding an initial target of 1 million.
As a result of this success and learnings gathered, the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity, a new, seven-year, US$ 126 million fund was established in 2023. This Fund aims to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) creating work opportunities in agriculture, climate impact, digital economy and health in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The main objective of the Fund is to unlock enterprise growth for the purpose of catalyzing, scaling-up and sustaining the creation of dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young women and men with limited financial means, including young people with disabilities and refugee youth.
The Fund aims to support an SME portfolio with moderate to high growth potential and innovative SMEs (including women-led SMEs) that have high impact potential and business models suited for work creation within the focus sectors of the Fund, especially for young women and men with limited financial means.
The Fund for Resilience and Prosperity aims to address a broad spectrum of SME-specific challenges as well as macro issues using four interventions:
Offering direct financial support through a challenge fund to address the resource flow barriers faced by SMEs looking to scale-up and, in turn, create and sustain employment opportunities for young women and men with limited financial means, including refugees and those living with disabilities.
Providing investor-readiness support to the SMEs and negotiation of partnerships with potential financiers to ensure sustainability and growth.
Adding value beyond financial support through technical assistance and capacity building to address the barriers concerning human capital and access to markets.
Convening relevant stakeholders to encourage an enabling business environment through experienced partners and digital platforms to drive systematic change and address the issues that impede the creation of work opportunities for the youth, especially young women.
The Fund has a focus on work creation by SMEs that can be working in any sector but creating work for young people with limited financial means in four key areas.
Each of these focus areas will have competitive challenges or calls for proposals that SMEs can apply to for a chance to be selected as Fund participants. Women-led SMEs are encouraged to apply for support.
Agriculture
Climate Impact
Digital Economy
Health
The Fund objective is to support SMEs in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. This will ensure a distribution of SME-based solutions that can sustainably create dignified and fulfilling work for young men and women, young people with disabilities and refugee youth even after the end of the program.
The countries are Benin, Burundi, Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.
The Mastercard Foundation is working with partners to implement this seven-year program. The Fund Manager for the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity is KPMG Development Services Limited in partnership with Triple Line Consulting, the Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Partner.
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