Malawi Innovation Challenge Fund (MICF) Management Services

The Government of Malawi is implementing the Private Sector Development Project (PSDP) that aims to strengthen the private sector’s ability to serve as the engine of economic growth. The goal of the project is to accelerate economic diversification and increase the opportunities for the poor to benefit from economic growth through higher incomes and better job creation, and through productive partnerships within the private sector, particularly between firms and poor producers and entrepreneurs, especially smallholders.

The PSDP established in 2014 the Malawi Innovation Challenge Fund (MICF), a PSD project component financed by UNDP, DFID, KfW and IFAD. The Malawi Innovation Challenge Fund (MICF) is a matching grant facility established by UNDP Malawi to provide co-financing to the private sector for innovative inclusive business initiatives in the agricultural, manufacturing and logistics sectors. The MICF aims to support the process of transformation within the Malawian economy from one that is dependent on imports and consumption to one that is geared to exporting and production along the targeted priority sectors of the National Export Strategy (NES).

The MICF has been designed to bring real impact, both in terms of attempting to change market systems and increased employment and incomes of the poor. The MICF offers a “challenge” to the private sector to achieve pre-defined objectives, often enabling technological innovations, and pre-defined pro-poor impacts. The challenge fund is a competitive mechanism to bring ideas to life by allocating financial support to innovative projects to improve incomes of the poor and test the long term commercial viability of the idea.

A first round of competition was launched in 2014 through Agriculture and Manufacturing Challenge Windows. The competition resulted in contracting ten innovative projects that are under implementation and some of which are scheduled to be concluded end of 2017. In 2016 a second round of competition was launched through an Agribusiness Challenge Window and a Manufacturing and Logistics Challenge Window. The competition resulted in contracting an additional ten innovative projects that are under implementation and that will be concluded by December 2019. In 2017 a third round of competition is scheduled to be launched and setting an Irrigation Challenge to the private sector. It is expected to contract five grantees.

UNDP with its Request For Proposals (RFP) is seeking MICF Fund Management services for the period starting January 2018 until December 2019 (two years) which marks the end of the Malawi Innovation Challenge Fund.