FCRA PROJECT: MAGRI CHALLENGE FUND

Deadline: 30.06.2014

With support from the UK Government under mNutrition Initiative, the GSMA opens a new mAgri Challenge Fund in February 2014. In order to reach 2 million users with life-changing mobile agriculture services we provide risk capital to strong and innovative projects selected through a competitive application process – up to GBP 250,000 per project. To ensure the success of grant-funded projects supported by the Challenge Fund, GSMA also provides business consultancy and technical support throughout the implementation period (24 months for each project).

Projects & services GSMA seeks to support

Information & Advisory Services

• The primary focus of the Fund is on information and advisory services for farmers that can improve farm productivity, income as well as the nutritional status of the household (Agri VAS).
• Mobile agriculture information services could include (but are not limited to): weather and climate advice, market information, agronomy advice for livestock, crops and fisheries, advice on post-harvest and processing practices, guidance on certification and standards of agricultural production, information and advice on inputs, pests and disease management.
• All information services must include a nutrition sensitive agriculture component.
• In addition information services might include advice and training on financial literacy, which is highly recommended in cases where information services are a supporting component for an agriculture-tailored mobile financial service (Agri MFS).

Mobile Financial Services

• The Fund seeks to support innovative mobile financial solutions for smallholders that can increase the efficiency of agriculture-related transactions, increase farmers’ access to saving opportunities as well as increasing access to derivative financial products such as insurance, credit and farm equipment lease.
• The Fund encourages applications for Agri MFS as long as they are bundled with information and advisory services, as described above.

Mobile Transaction Services

• The Fund seeks to support innovative mobile solutions to improve the efficiency of agricultural value chains as long as they are complimented with information and advisory services for smallholders.

What is available through the Fund?

Monetary support

• Grants of GBP 250,000 (must be 100% matched by grantee, in cash or in kind)
•  GBP 75,000 to cover the costs of a full-time expert in user experience and service design to join the implementation team for the length of the project. (This additional earmarked funding does not have to be matched by the grantee).

Non-monetary support

To make sure that the granted projects are low-risk and deliver value to the end user, GSMA will work with grantees to develop a support plan which may include:

• targeted consultancy (business, technical and agriculture expertise),
• supporting tools and resources,
• tailored in-country market and customer insights research as well as support on user-centric service design,
• relevant content for a set of selected commodities identified in collaboration with the business owner, including factsheets available for the further customisation by the consortium.
• knowledge sharing opportunities with practitioners in mobile agriculture sector,
• partnership brokering,
• analytics and business intelligence,monitoring and evaluation framework and tools.