Microfinance in Africa is a powerful tool aimed at promoting economic growth and generating employment, yet the sector is fragile and its outreach is limited: only 1 in 5 households has a deposit account with a regulated financial institution, compared to an average of 1.5 in 5 in other developing regions, and 4 in 5 in developed countries. One significant challenge to the development of an efficient and sustainable microfinance sector in Africa is the lack of technical capacity building at various levels: among retail financial institutions (micro level), the microfinance market infrastructure (meso level), as well as the regulatory environment (macro level).
In this context, the African Development Bank (AfDB), in collaboration with the Government of Spain, established the Microfinance Capacity Building Fund (MCBF) with the primary objective of scaling-up capacity building efforts to the financial sector for the benefit of poor and low-income people in Africa, with a special emphasis on women and rural areas.
The mission of MCBF is to deepen the outreach of the African financial sector by developing inclusive financial sectors that are composed of diverse institutions providing permanent access to a wide and adapted variety of financial services for a broad range of poor and low-income people.
Financing Activities
The Microfinance Capacity Building Fund (MCBF) will offer technical assistance to build the capacity of retail financial institutions (micro level), the microfinance market infrastructure (meso level), as well as the regulatory environment (macro level). It will fund projects in the following areas of intervention:
– Increase Transparency within the Microfinance Sector
– Deepen Outreach to Rural Areas
First Call for Proposals
The MCBF has issued the first phase of Calls for Proposals (CfP), focusing on the West African Economic Monetary Union (WAEMU). These include: Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo.
What types of institutions are eligible to apply?
– Applicants eligible to receive grants from MCBF include, but are not restricted to:
– Service providers to retail financial institutions – includes training centers, credit bureaus, audit firms, rating companies, and IT firms
– Networks of retail financial institutions
– Groups of retail financial institutions
– Retail financial institutions servicing poor and low-income clients, with special attention to women and rural areas. Please note that Group or Network applications are preferred over individual applications.
– Government entities and central banks (They are not required to apply through the Call for Proposal (CfP) process and may submit a request at any time to the MCBF).
Last date for submission of proposals is September 19, 2011
For more information and details, you can visit this link.
