Impact Investment Readiness Accelerator (Cohort 2): A Call For Application from African Women, Youth & PwD-Led SMEs
Across Nigeria and Africa, women-owned, youth-led, and disability-focused enterprises remain significantly underrepresented in formal capital markets—despite their proven capacity to drive inclusive economic growth, job creation, and innovation. Persistent systemic barriers, including limited investment readiness, weak enterprise systems, inadequate technical support, and perceived risk profiles, continue to constrain their ability to attract and absorb capital at scale.
At the same time, impact investors are actively seeking bankable, inclusive, and impact-aligned deals, yet face a thin pipeline of enterprises ready for capital deployment. This market mismatch leaves Africa’s MSMEs—representing over 90% of businesses, 63% of employment, and 50% of GDP—chronically underfunded, while investors remain underserved.
As such , this Accelerator is designed to bridge this gap, catalyse inclusive capital access, strengthen deal flow, and enable investment matching while positioning our women, youth, and PwD-led SMEs for the AfCFTA, a single market of 1.4 billion people across 54 countries, valued at US$3.4 trillion.
Program Objectives
a.) Operationalising the Gender Equity and Social Inclusion (GESI) Roadmap as a practical tool that drives measurable change across Nigeria’s and Africa’s financial and real sectors.
b.) Strengthening knowledge and adoption of Gender Lens Investing (GLI) while enabling institutional-level integration of GESI principles into enterprise strategy, governance, and decision-making.
c.) Refining enterprise systems and capabilities, including business processes, models, documentation, governance structures, and sustainability practices—while embedding a culture of continuous learning, reflection, and adaptive improvement.
d.) Catalyze sustainable revenue growth, job creation, and long-term enterprise resilience.
e.) Facilitating investor connections, deal flow, and matchmaking to unlock equity, debt, and grant funding at scale.
Implementation & Methodology
Program Structure
Phase 1: Business Clinic & Diagnostics
Phase 2: Coaching & Technical Support
Phase 3: Impact Platform Onboarding & Deal Matching
Target Population
The program targets women-owned SMEs, youth-led enterprises, and PwD/WwD-focused businesses operating in Africa
Eligibility Criteria
Applicants must:
✓ Be registered and commercially viable SMEs operating in Africa (early growth stage)
✓ Demonstrate revenue-generating activities
✓ Show potential for scalability and measurable social and/or environmental impact
✓ Be committed to learning, continuous process improvement, and adaptation
✓ Be actively seeking catalytic funding or impact capital to scale within the next 12 months.
METHOD OF APPLICATION
Interested and Qualified candidates should use link below to Apply.
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