Call for expressions of interest for a service provider to support the acceleration phase of the Business Incubator and Accelerator for Mountains and Islands

07/12/2023

The Mountain Partnership Secretariat has launched a Request for Expressions of Interest for qualified service providers to support the business acceleration phase of the Business Incubator and Accelerator (BIA) for Mountains and Islands.

The BIA programme aims to foster innovative entrepreneurship in diverse value chains, such as agriculture and textiles, to enhance resilience of mountain and island communities. This will be achieved through a combination of grants, technical assistance and capacity development.

The BIA for Mountains and Islands is structured as follows:

Financial support: provides grants to small-scale producer organizations and non-governmental organizations to foster innovative entrepreneurship in various value chains, such as agriculture and textiles
Technical assistance: offers technical support to the grant applicants through a business incubator to refine their business plans and budgets, aiming to improve the feasibility, sustainability, potential impact, replicability and economic efficiency of their grant proposals
Capacity development (the focus of this Request for Expression of Interest): enhances the capacity of grantees through a business accelerator, which provides technical, commercial and marketing support to boost business development by capitalizing on existing growth opportunities

The selected service providers will be responsible for providing support to up to 60 beneficiary organizations (small-scale producer organization, non-governmental organization) across ten countries: the Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Fiji, Guatemala, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines and Uganda.

The services include:

analysis of the business proposals
preliminary diagnosis to draft a business development strategy
12-month technical assistance for the implementation of the business strategy
gathering of baseline data related to social, economic and environmental indicators

For detailed information and to submit your organization’s expression of interest, complete and submit the form by 8 January 2024 to [email protected].