Call for Proposals: Common Fund for Commodities Supporting Community Development

Deadline: 31 October 2017

FUNDING INNOVATION – SUPPORT FOR COMMODITY DEVELOPMENT

The Common Fund for Commodities is seeking applications to provide financing to organisations and enterprises engaged in commodity value chains in its member countries.

The CFC provides a range of financial and technical instruments in support of business activities contributing to commodity sector development in Developing Countries that besides generating a viable financial return, eligible activities should also deliver a measurable social and environmental impact.

Objectives

• Social: Create employment (particularly for youth and women), provide sustained increase in household incomes, reduce poverty, and enhance food security.
• Economic: Enhance production and productivity, achieve higher local value addition; improve competitiveness of producers, producer organisations and small and medium sized industries, support the financial sector development.
• Environmental: Enhance production taking into account the environment and its long term possibilities for the same, or increased use of productive resources while maintaining or reducing the impact on the environment.

Activities

The CFC supports implementation of activities along the value chain that:

• are innovative, scalable and replicable,
• are financially sustainable,
• have a potential measurable positive socio-economic and environmental impact on the stakeholders in commodity value chains as compared to the prevailing baseline situation,
• develop stronger connections with existing markets or create new markets along the value chain,
• increase financial or other services available for commodity producers and commodity based businesses,
• enhance knowledge generation and information dissemination, and
• build effective and cost efficient collaboration between producers, industry, governments, civil society organisations and other stakeholders for commodity based development.

Eligibility Criteria

All legal public and private entities are eligible to apply under this Call for Proposals:

• operate in commodity value chains in CFC member countries or provide financial services to micro, small and medium sized businesses operating in these value chains,
• have a proven relevant track record of sound financial operations in their current and / or proposed activities over a period of at least 3 years, which can be documented by means of (audited) financial statements, and
• share CFC’s values, including internationally recognized principles concerning human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption as reflected in the United Nations Global Compact.

EXPECTED IMPACT

Relevance to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGS)

The proponents should identify and specify the SDGs to which the project will contribute.

Direct Development Impact

The proponent should present transparent and verifiable information concerning the baseline data and projections for:

(i) Economic impact:

–          on the economic situation of the participating producer households;

–          on the commercial /economic position of the applicant organization.

(ii) Social impact:

–          on the position of the benefiting producer households;

–          on the employment created and the wages paid by the applicant organization;

–          on the welfare of special vulnerable groups such as women, youth and the poorest persons below the poverty line.

(iii) Environment impact:

–          of the processing activities by the applicant organization;

–          of the production practices of the project participants.

Please note that projects with adverse net environmental impact will not be considered by the CFC.

Indirect Development Impact:

To the extent relevant to the project, the proponent should describe the wider impact of the project:

–          on the value chain in which the applicant operates;

–          on the larger market system and commodity sector.

How to Apply

All interested parties are kindly invited to submit qualifying proposals  by downloading the call for proposals and submission guidelines and submitting a duly filled application form (PDF and Word) as per guidelines provided:

Resources:

• Call for Proposals (PDF)

• Application form (PDF and Word)

• Instructions for completing the application form (PDF)

• Balance Sheet and Income Statement (Excel)

For more information, please visit Common Fund for Commodities.