GSMA Innovation Fund for Agro digitisation debuts - ITREALMS

The GSMA Innovation Fund for Digitisation of Agricultural Value Chains

ITREALMS:

The GSMA Innovation Fund for Digitisation of Agricultural Value Chains has open for entries, reports ITREALMS.

The fund, ITREALMS gathered aims to scale digital solutions for the agricultural last mile and improve smallholders’ financial inclusion, livelihood and climate resilience.

The priorities of the fund is for enterprise services targeted at organisations (e.g. agribusiness, cooperatives, etc.) procuring from smallholders with the focus on those living on less than USD 2 per day.

Up to eight grants of £220,000 each are being made available to support projects of 24 months duration. In addition, the GSMA will provide in-kind support and consultancy to assist the development of business plans, and service implementation through market research, user-centric design, business intelligence, user-testing with agribusiness staff and smallholders.

ITREALMS gathered that grants are available across two categories of application, namely Mobile Money Driven Category and Data Driven Category.

Applications for funding across both categories, ITREALMS gathered are assessed through a two-stage application process.

"Concept Note: The first step will be to submit a Concept Note, which outlines the project objectives, lists proposed partners, demonstrates the consortium’s capacity to deliver the project and explains how the project fits within wider strategy of the business owner.

"Business Plan: A short-list of applicants whose Concepts Notes meet the objectives and eligibility requirements of the Fund will be invited to develop a Business Plan which will further outline the strategy for implementing and scaling the service; provide a budget projection with an indication of how the grant is to be spent, and a workplan for the 24 month implementation period.

All eligible applicants at Concept Note stage, irrespective of whether they ultimately receive grant under this Innovation Fund, will be invited to join the GSMA AgriTech Priority Learning Partners Initiative, where they will gain access to a number of knowledge sharing resources and events, including webinars on the topic of enterprise solutions for the last mile.

Further, ITREALMS gathered that submission of Concept Note applications by 31 July 2019 is ideal.

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Chuks Egbune/Editor

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