About the Fund
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.