Company Profile

The World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is one of Canada’s leading non-profit international development organizations, committed to building a more equitable and sustainable world. Our vision is a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable world for youth. It is a world in which all young people, especially women and refugees, are empowered to secure a good quality of life for themselves, their families, and their communities. We work with a diverse network of students, volunteers, institutions, governments, and businesses to improve education, economic, and empowerment opportunities for youth, and to improve the lives of millions of disadvantaged people around the world.

Job Description

Request for Proposals
Fund Manager for the NBS Guinean Forest Challenge Grant Fund
Nature-based climate adaptation in the Guinean forests of West Africa (NBS Guinean Forest)

Section One: Introduction to WUSC and CECI & the NBS Guinean Forest Project
1) Introduction
World University Service of Canada (WUSC)
The World University Service of Canada (WUSC) is one of Canada's leading non-profit international development organizations, committed to building a more equitable and sustainable world. Our vision is a more inclusive, equitable, and sustainable world for youth. It is a world in which all young people, especially women and refugees, are empowered to secure a good quality of life for themselves, their families, and their communities. We work with a diverse network of students, volunteers, institutions, governments, and businesses to improve education, economic, and empowerment opportunities for youth, and to improve the lives of millions of disadvantaged people around the world.

Centre d’Etude de Coopération International (CECI)
The Centre d’Etude et de Coopération International (CECI) is a leading Canadian organization dedicated to fighting poverty and exclusion by building the developmental capacities of disadvantaged communities. The mission of CECI is to combat poverty, exclusion and inequality. To this end, CECI builds the development capacities of disadvantaged communities. We support gender equality, violence reduction, food security, resilience and adaptation to climate change. We mobilize resources and promote knowledge sharing.

Background NBS Guinean Forest Project
Nature-based climate adaptation in the Guinean forests of West Africa project (abbreviated as the NbS Guinean Forest Project) is a 3-year collaborative initiative (March 27, 2023 – March 31, 2026), implemented by that World University Service of Canada (WUSC) and Centre d’Études et de Coopération Internationale (CECI), as a consortium. It will contribute in enhancing the adoption of gender responsive and inclusive nature-based solutions (NbS) for climate change adaptation (CCA) among communities residing in the Guinean forest region of Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Guinea, specifically in the landscapes of Wassa Amenfi and Lake Bosomtwe Landscapes in Ghana, landscapes surrounding Taï National Park, and landscapes surrounding botanical reserve of Divo in Côte d’Ivoire, landscapes surrounding the Kounounkan Forest Reserve and the Madina Oula landscape in Guinea.

This initiative builds on WUSC’s and CECI’s decades of experience supporting vulnerable populations and leverages the experience of a variety of local and international partners, bringing complementary and value-added expertise to the project: The Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF) has worked for over seven decades in the Global South to enable the creation of healthy, productive landscapes made resilient through the transformative power of forests, trees and agroforestry. Created in 1948, the International Union of the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is the world’s largest and most diverse environmental network, harnessing the knowledge, resources and reach of our more than 1,400 Member organizations and 15,000 experts. This diversity and expertise makes IUCN the global authority on the status of the natural world and the measures needed to safeguard it. ABANTU for Development is a non-profit organization strengthening the capacity of women to participate in decision-making at all levels, to influence policies from a gender perspective, and to address inequalities and injustices in social relations. The International Barcode of Life (IBOL) is working to establish an Earth observation system that will discover species, reveal their interactions, and establish biodiversity baselines.

This project, with a budget of $26,185,529 CAD, will improve women’s leadership in Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) planning processes (Intermediate Outcome 1100), by increasing the restoration of degraded forests and key habitats with benefits for biodiversity (Intermediate Outcome 1200), and by increasing gender-responsive investments with income potential for women (Intermediate Outcome 1300). Using an inclusive market systems (IMS) approach, the project will focus on engaging with a wide range of stakeholders to develop local and regional capacity to use evidence and engage with women and marginalized groups to prioritize locally relevant NBS to climate change adaptation that contributes to enhanced biodiversity and gender equality.

Section Two The NBS Challenge Grant Key Guidelines for Small & Medium Sized businesses

NBS Challenge Grant Context
The NBS Guinean Forest Challenge Grant is a fund established to enable the project to invest in innovative business ideas of small and medium sized enterprises, particularly on innovations that demonstrate potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation and gender equality/ women’s economic empowerment through Nature-based solutions. While the Fund will target all eligible small and medium sized enterprises, those that represent the interests of a critical mass of women or are women led/owned will be prioritized. The Project recently completed a market assessment in the cocoa value chain in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire and in the rice value chain in Guinea to understand their potential to generate innovative and viable business ideas with beneficial returns for the environment and women’s economic empowerment in target landscapes. The market assessment revealed the interesting business models which if supported could yield significant benefits for biodiversity conservation, climate adaptation and women’s economic empowerment. The project would like to invest in these models and would therefore prioritize business ideas from within these sectors that have direct nature-positive impacts on the target landscapes. Where it makes sense to do so, the project will also consider business ideas or models from other sectors as long as they have a direct impact in communities with the target landscapes.

Specific Objectives of the Challenge Grant Fund

• To invest in innovative businesses that can advance climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation while fostering women’s economic empowerment in the project landscapes
• To attract private sector investments in nature-based solutions for a sustainable impact in climate adaptation
• To promote green entrepreneurship as a viable option for employment among youth – particularly women entrepreneurs.
• To support businesses with funds to incubate and accelerate viable business ideas that can contribute to climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation and women’s economic empowerment by cushioning their financial risk.

Overall Investment Strategy
The total grant envelope for this fund is $CAD 1 '300' 000 to be invested within a period of 12 – 24 months (the exact disbursement window to be agreed upon with the Fund Manager) and within which all associated technical assistance or other business support assistance needs to have been completed. This envelope represents the total amount to be disbursed to recipients as cash and or equipment grant, including other forms of accompanying technical assistance and relevant business development support. The Fund Manager can charge up 11,5 % from within the global envelope for management fees. Preference however will be given to applications from Fund Managers that can demonstrate value for money, with competitive management fee structures as well disbursement mechanisms that complement an existing investment portfolio within the applicant’s organization. The following category of businesses will be targeted for the Challenge Grant using investable strategies that are adapted to their organizational size and structure.

Small scale businesses:
For the purposes of the grant, these are businesses with a minimum of two employees. Businesses with only one employee can be eligible in cases where the viable business idea being presented will contribute to employee growth.

All businesses within this category should be women owned / led or should demonstrate that they represent the interest of a critical mass of women.

Investment strategy and criteria: The suggested investment strategy and criteria for businesses under the small scale business category are the following:

• Eligible applicants will have a yearly turn-over of a minimum of CAD 2’264 (XOF 1’000’000)
• Should have had a legal existence of at least 24 months. In exceptional cases, enterprises with strong viable business ideas may be selected if they meet the minimum yearly turnover, but may not yet be legally constituted at the time of application, but will complete the process of acquiring legal registration within 6 weeks of being pre-qualified, without which they would lose the right to be selected.
• Should be able to contribute a minimum of 5% of the overall requested grant amount.
• Applicants may apply to receive cash grants, equipment grants or grants in the form of technical assistance support.
• In some cases, where it is established that there is a need, beneficiary businesses under this category that applied for a cash or equipment grant will have their request complemented with custom made technical assistance or other forms of business development support, even where this need may not have been expressed in the original application. This will be assessed on a case by case basis.
• In addition to any custom made training that will be offered to beneficiary businesses under this category, all beneficiaries will be required to take part in foundational training on the following modules: Nature-Based Solutions, Gender mainstreaming as well as other relevant business development modules (e.g business development canvas, business plan, access to finance bootcamps etc).
• Viable business ideas from entrepreneurs under this category must demonstrate direct benefits either in climate adaptation or biodiversity preservation for communities in the landscapes where the project operates in order to be selected.
• In addition to point (f) above, the project will ideally prioritize viable business ideas that are linked in one way or the other to the cocoa sector (for Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire) or the Rice sector (for Guinea). However, in exceptional cases, grants may be offered to support viable business ideas that are not within the above sectors, but contribute significant benefits to target project communities as well as to climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation.

Medium scale businesses:

For the purposes of the project, these are enterprises with a minimum of three employees, and can be representative of men or women business owners / leaders.

Investment strategy and criteria: The suggested investment strategy and criteria for enterprises under the medium scale business category are the following:

• Eligible applicants will have a yearly turn-over of a minimum of CAD 11’320 (XOF 5’000’000)
• Should have had a legal existence of at least 24 months.
• Should be able to contribute a minimum of 7% of the overall requested grant amount
• Applicants may apply to receive cash grants, equipment grants or grants in the form of technical assistance support.
• In some cases, where it is established that there is a need, beneficiary businesses under this category that applied for a cash or equipment grant will have their request complemented with custom made technical assistance or other forms of business development support, even where this need may not have been expressed in the original application. This will be assessed on a case by case basis.
• In addition to any custom made training that will be offered to beneficiary businesses under this category, all beneficiaries will be required to take part in foundational training on the following modules: Nature Based Solutions, Gender mainstreaming. Selected beneficiaries under this category will need to commit to deploying aspects of the grant to strengthen gender integration within their organization, either through development and implementation of a gender strategy and in investments that will promote women’s economic empowerment.
• Viable business ideas from entrepreneurs under this category must demonstrate direct benefits either in climate adaptation or biodiversity preservation for communities in the landscapes where the project operates in order to be selected.
• In addition to point (f) above, the project will ideally prioritize viable business ideas that are linked in one way or the other to the cocoa sector (for Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire) the Rice sector (for Guinea). However, in exceptional cases, grants may be offered to support viable business ideas that are not within the above sectors, but contribute significant benefits to target project communities as well as to climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation.

NBS Challenge Grant Investment Vehicles
As mentioned above, the funds from the NBS Challenge grant may be used to provide cash grants, equipment grants or grants that take the form of technical assistance support for eligible beneficiary enterprises. The funds cannot be used as a revolving fund, or as part of a lending instrument or in any way that will generate interest for the Fund Manager. However, it can be used to complement an existing investment initiative of the Fund Manager, where there is evidence that the complementing percentage will not be subjected to interest or as a lending product to eligible beneficiaries. That being said, WUSC will be open to review other investment mechanisms proposed by Fund Managers that do not involve lending, revolving funds or interest generation. All grants will be disbursed through a competitive selection that eligible enterprises can apply to.

NBS Challenge Grant Performance Monitoring Guidelines
The performance monitoring process of this grant is organized under the three main areas below and all data must be disaggregated by sex, by age, by business category, by community impacted and by country of the grant recipient.

A) Grant disbursement
Under this aspect, the project will assess performance on the basis of:

• Number of cash grant recipients
• Number of equipment grant recipients
• Total value of equipment grants provided
• Total of cash grant disbursed within a given period (to be agreed with the Fund Manager)
• Total value of grant contribution to the enterprise and target communities in the form of benefits to biodiversity preservation, climate adaptation, women’s economic empowerment.

B) Technical Assistance

• Number of grant recipients trained in a specific area
• Number of grant recipients demonstrating expertise in areas trained
• Number of grant recipients using equipment grants within 3 months of acquisition.
• $ value of investments made in climate change adaptation with biodiversity co-benefits made by grantee enterprises
• Social Return in Investment with a specific focus on the impact for gender equality and or women’s empowerment using the USAID Women-inclusive return on investment (WI-ROI) framework. This measure will be co-developed with the support of the NBS Guinean Forest Project MERL team.

c) Gender Integration:

• Number of enterprises receiving training on gender integration
• Number of enterprises with gender strategies (for medium scale businesses)
• Number of enterprises applying gender strategy recommendations or action plans (for medium scale businesses) using the USAID Women-inclusive return on investment (WI-ROI) framework
• Number of women employed or served by grantee enterprise through the contribution of the grants

Important Dates for Bidder
Interested Fund Managers or similar organizations are requested to bid in response to the Scope of Work described below and in accordance with the stipulated bidding requirements of this RFP. The table below summarizes important dates for the bidders:

Scope of the Assignment
The project would like to engage the services of a Fund Manager or similar social impact organization to administer a $CAD 1.300 '000 fund across three countries Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea. The project is seeking one organization with operational capabilities to administer the fund in the three countries, with a focus on viable business initiatives that will benefit the project communities in these three countries. The communities include:

• Ghana: 17 communities in the Wassa Amenfi and Lake Bosemtwi landscapes
• Côte d’Ivoire: 21 communities in the Loh Djiboua and Nawa landscapes
• Guinea: 15 communities in the Kounoukan and Madina Oula Landscapes.

A list of the communities will be provided to the selected Fund Manager. However, where it makes sense to do so, grants can be offered to communities outside those provided to the Fund Manager, if they are within the project landscapes and can demonstrate relevance in terms of their contribution to climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation and women’s economic empowerment.

In addition, as mentioned above, the Project will seek to prioritize business ideas that can contribute in one way or the other to the cocoa value chain (Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire) and the rice value chain (Guinea). That being said, exceptions will be made for strong viable business ideas from other sectors that will benefit the identified communities within the project landscapes and contribute to any two of the following aspects climate adaptation, biodiversity preservation and women’s economic empowerment.

Activities and Deliverables
A) Entrepreneur selection for grants

• Prepare a competitive selection strategy for the identification of viable business ideas from enterprises that reflects the objectives of the Challenge Grant.
• Advertise selection campaign using gender sensitive methodologies that can attract an important number of women owned businesses under the small scale business category as well as business owners under the medium scale business category.
• Implement a rigorous selection process that includes a panel as well as other screening measures.
• Prepare a long list of initial business ideas / enterprises shared with the relevant WUSC or CECI country coordinator, including type of grants request.
• With inputs from the relevant WUSC or CECI country coordinator, put together a shortlist of candidates selected for grants.
• The above process can be initiated several times within a given year where it makes sense to do so in order to achieve grant disbursement targets.

B) Grant Disbursement Mechanism

• Prepare the grant disbursement and investment strategy that is aligned with the grant objectives and validate its implementation approach with the NBS Guinean Forest Project Director
• Prepare the technical assistance and equipment grant implementation strategy aligning with Challenge Grant objectives and oversee the administration of the strategy
• Ensure efficient distribution of funds, through transparency and rigorous financial management.
• Coordinate with project stakeholders to ensure effective funding.

c) Capacity development of grantees

• In collaboration with WUSC, prepare the training plan and curriculum for the foundational trainings that target Nature Based Solutions, Gender Integration and business related training (business plans, business canvas model, access to finance bootcamps etc)
• Provide foundational training to selected grantees on the business modules and with the support of WUSC for the modules related to gender integration and nature based solutions.
• Provide a monthly training plan to relevant WUSC / CECI country coordinators for customized technical assistance requested by grantees.
• Oversee the delivery of customized training to the relevant trainees
• Prepare and share periodic (frequency to be agreed upon with Fund Manager) reports to relevant WUSC / CECI country coordinators on the progress of the technical assistance delivery.

D) Coaching

• Prepare a coaching plan and deliver coaching for selected grantees.
• Coaching plans should take into consideration the unique circumstances of grantees, and the use of coaching approaches that can optimize the participation of women entrepreneurs.

E) Business Development Services

• Provide other relevant business support services to grantee women entrepreneurs (such as support in formalization, leadership development etc)
• Provide information on access to financial opportunities such as the organisation of access to finance bootcamps
• Provide support and information to facilitate access to markets (such as market linkages, online marketing, packaging, labeling etc), particularly for selected women owned business grantees.
• Other relevant business development services that may be expressed by recipients, particularly women business owners to reach their full potential

F) Monitoring and Evaluation

• In collaboration with the NBS project M&E team, prepare a monitoring and evaluation plan to track progress and performance in the administration of grants, in alignment with the indicators identified in the performance Monitoring guidelines mentioned above.
• Implement the monitoring and evaluation plan to gather evidence on progress and performance in the administration of grants
• Share periodic reports (frequency to be agreed upon with Fund Manager) to relevant WUSC / CECI country coordinators on the progress and performance documents through data collected under the M&E plan
• In collaboration with the relevant country coordinator for WUSC / CECI organize periodic learning events to share progress and lessons learnt

Activity Budget
As mentioned above, a total budget of CAD $1.300’000 is available for the implementation of this project (including other associated management fees), to cover an implementation period effective from the contract signature date up to March 31, 2026. The implementation period can be increased to a maximum of an additional 6 months’ subject to the extension of the NBS Guinean Forest project. All financial aspects of the proposal should be quoted in currency of the countries for which the expenses are destined – e.g, XOF for Côte d’Ivoire, GHS for Ghana and GNF for Guinea.

The budget should take into consideration all applicable fees, taxes or other relevant overhead expenses which should not exceed 11.5% of the total global envelope.

Bidders should strive to ensure that budgets are equitably distributed across the three countries. This approach will be subject to further review and modification every 6 months during the implementation process, to ensure that budgeting is aligned with individual country absorption capacity and to easily make adaptations that can enable the fund to support emerging opportunities.

In the execution of budgets by business category, at least 50% of grants support should target women owned /led businesses under the Small Scale business category.

Bidders will be solely responsible for any cost incurred by the Bidder in the preparation of their proposal and they will not be reimbursed in any manner by the NBS Guinean Forest Project.

Contracting and Inception Meetings
Once a bidder has been selected, WUSC will organize several inception meetings to clarify and refine their approach to ensure that it completely aligns with any project expectations. The inception review process will conclude by an inception report, that reflects any updates made to the bidder’s methodology, and reflected in the contractual work plan.

Required Skills or Experience

Mandatory Qualifications and Requirements
Screening process:
The project will use a two-stage-screening approach in the review of applications and the selection of the successful bid. At the first stage, applications will be screened in line with the mandatory requirements and qualifications below. Please note that at this stage, applicants are NOT required to prepare and submit a financial offer. Once the screening is completed, the project will shortlist the bidders selected for the second stage.

Stage One
Stage one screening: Mandatory qualifications and requirements

• Must demonstrate operational capabilities in the three countries. The NBS Challenge Grant will be implemented as a regional fund across the three implementing countries. While it is not necessary for the Fund Manager to have a presence in all three countries, it is important for bidders to demonstrate how they will operate in countries where they currently do not have any presence.
• Must demonstrate how the NBS Challenge Grant will be used to complement or leverage an existing investment portfolio within the bidding organization through a co-financing mechanism. The NBS Challenge Grant funds, while they can be delivered separately by the Fund Manager, preference will be offered for bids where the investment strategy presented by the bidding organization involves in part or entirely an approach of complementarity through co-investment which minimizes overhead costs. Complementarity does not need to be applied for all aspects of the grant, as long as the bidder can demonstrate how parts of the fund will complement an existing investment portfolio.
• Past or present experience in investing in entrepreneurs in agriculture value chains, particularly women led / owned business in any of the project countries.
• Profiles of the professional experience of the global team members that will be directly involved in the administration of the NBS Challenge grant
• Provide evidence to demonstrate knowledge of monitoring and evaluation mechanisms for capturing performance and progress of entrepreneurship initiatives
• Primary contact name and contact details of the organization and focal point for the bid.

Stage Two:
At the second stage, shortlisted applicants will be invited to present their technical offer, alongside the other Stage two mandatory qualifications and requirements listed below.

Stage two screening: Mandatory qualifications and requirements

• A technical offer that outlines clearly how the Fund Manager will address the activities listed under the activities and deliverables
• A detailed financial proposal outlining how the Fund Manager will administer the NBS Challenge Grant within the available budget, including number of hours, staff levels of effort, overhead and any other relevant cost.
• Provide a proposed M&E framework that will be used to capture, document and report on project benchmarks and indicators identified under the Performance Monitoring Guidelines.