Investing in Africa

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Diversity of investments in Africa offers a diversity of solutions to global food, climate, and human rights crisis. Allowing accessible access to micro-credit funding will build this diversity.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

30+ years of experience in climate and sustainability, building global networks, foundations, and environmental conservation. The last two years of SCC have reached 154 million impressions and political traction with the COP27 Presidency.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

Entrepreneurs in Africa play a key role to produce food and can act as solutions-multipliers to enhance the resilience and capacity of people and communities to cope with the ongoing escalating food crisis that is being exacerbated by climate change and the war in Ukraine (Russia and Ukraine are key cereal providers for many LDCs). This proposal will allow easier and quicker access to microcredit-type funding for entrepreneurs in Africa.

Additionally, COP27 will be the COP of Africa, and the Egyptian Presidency is keen on making COP27 a springboard and catalyzing moment for channeling finance towards adaptation and Nature-Based Solutions on the ground.

In collaboration with The Rallying Cry, SHE Changes Climate (SCC) will catalyse investment to grow and scale climate-smart enterprises across agricultural value chains in Africa. This work will support the development of financial instruments that are tailored to the needs of African entrepreneurs. 

The team has already started interacting with the Cardano community such as Yoram Ben-Zvi, Dzhuliana Nikolova, and Mercy A. Fordwoo.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Cardano needs concrete and sustained crypto investment in Africa to ensure Cardano market growth. SCC and The Rallying Cry are working with frontline African business leaders who are delivering climate-smart, diverse, and sustainable solutions across the agriculture value chain. More international climate and development finance is channelled towards climate-smart enterprises. In partnership with Cardano investors, this project could be escalated and platform Cardano to a global network. 

Additionally, Africa has historically lacked large funding opportunities. This proposal will align with the Grow Africa, Grow Cardano fund as it will focus and strategies on ways to promote blockchain, impact investing, and the growth of climate tech in the Global South. 

SCC has built a community of partners and 400+ influential leaders, the Cardano mentoring women network, the Women's Earth Alliance network, the Rallying Cry network of women entrepreneurs in Africa, as well as the Ford Foundation network of grantees.

This proposal will contribute and is aligned with the following Challenge 9 KPIs:

Number of proposals addressing the fundamental issues preventing Cardano adoption in Africa 

Number of proposals offering solutions to infrastructure and education concerns

Local impact (measurable through user activity and reach)

Local partnerships formed (size of institution + influence)

And will indirectly contribute to the following Challenge KPIs:

Number of new Africa-based Catalyst members (proposers, voters, CAs)

Number of new African projects seeded in 2022

Number of African developers onboarded in 2022

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

Risk of not delivering: The team is already working on building partnerships with entrepreneurs in Africa and expanding the SCC network. However, there are always risks. To mitigate these, we are working with The Rallying Cry which has a wealth of experience in the space of micro-credits in Africa and how capital allocators can scale local climate solutions through more equitable financing solutions and collaborative, ecosystem-driven partnerships.

Risk of not adopting: There is a risk that people will not be interested in partaking in a micro-credit opportunity. There are currently over 25 stakeholders in Kenya and Zambia who have a relationship with The Rallying Cry. The collaboration with SCC and Cardano will expand engaged stakeholders from this platform.

Risk of not reaching the desired outcome: The desired outcome is to catalyse blockchain investment in Africa. This will require working with Global North Investors and engaging with stakeholders in Africa. Building these connections will encourage investments and grow strong, trusted, and transparent relationships. An indirect product of this as addressed in the KPIs is the potential for a number of new initiatives onboarded through our African partners. The process of the event will determine the outcome.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Planning - 6 months - for network and investment strategy building, and project objectives. 

July: 

• Building and nurturing the community and relationship with The Rallying Cry and their stakeholders in Africa. 
• Continuing to map out key stakeholders.
• Continue to build relationships with the Cardano community and micro-funding initiatives. 
• Developing and maintaining a high-trust relationship with the COP27 Presidency team and High-Level Climate Champions. 

August: 

• Developing the fully-fledged concept note, agenda, and final list of partners for the micro-financing project. 
• Engaging and growing the community of partners, and developing media partnerships around global south investment. 

September:

• Intensifying the policy and advocacy work with the COP27 Presidency while increasing the level of public pressure with the open letter and cooperation with the Avaaz online community

October: 

• Boosting the outreach through media and social media outreach. 
• Platform voices from The Rallying Cry and African stakeholders. 

November: 

• Media focus and partnership focus on relationships between COP27 and impact invesmtent in the global south. 
• Work with The Rallying Cry, African stakeholders, and the Cardano community to platform African initiatives that need financing. 

December/ January: 

• Collecting feedback, lessons learned, and key statistics to measure impact. 
• Prepare strategies to maintain relationships moving forward.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

Community-building long-run effort: 11,000

• Stakeholder mapping -1,500
• One-to-one engagement - 1,500
• Collective meetings facilitation - 2,000
• Admin and Staff time support for 4 months 
• 4,000 (1000 / month)
• 60 hrs/ month

Summit team preparation: 14,000

• Staff time for 4 months - 4,000 (1000/month)
• Media and social media outreach and advertisement - 1,500
• Network IT infrastructures, database maintenance - 2,000
• Branding and public-facing messaging - 1,500
• Marketing and advertising - 1,500
• Short video “trailer type” announcement - 1,500
• VIP Speakers fees - 2,000

Summit coverage with IT support and facilitation: 2,000

Feedback, monitoring impact, and reporting, financial management: 2,000

Total budget: 29,000

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Antoinette Vermilye

Co-Founder SHE Changes Climate and the Gallifrey Foundation and an International Gender Champion. Antoinette is passionate about the complex interrelationships of the ocean, plastics, gender, climate change, and overfishing on social injustice, human health, and the environment. She seeks coalitions to find action-oriented solutions that will have far-reaching impacts downstream or to take action on identified gaps where little or no attention is paid. Antoinette has been involved in tangential legal actions to shift paradigm thinking and create action/reaction scenarios, consumer and education awareness-raising on social injustice, and human health and environmental impacts and also working behind the scenes to affect discreet levers of change.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoinette-vermilye-she-her-065a67167/ 

Bianca Pitt

Co-Founder of SHE Changes Climate and the Founder of the Women of the Environment Network. She is an advisor to the environmental charity sector, an activist and campaigner, and an environmental funder. She also serves on a number of boards and advisory committees. She is a Fellow of the RSA and TEDx speaker.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bianca-pitt-a951251/ 

Elise Buckle

Co-Founder of SHE Changes Climate and President of Climate & Sustainability, a platform of collaboration for change-makers focusing on partnership for climate, people, and nature. Elise Buckle has been working in the field of climate and sustainability for 20 years. She has worked as a United Nations special advisor to several high-level diplomats and led several successful global and political campaigns at the EU Parliament, in Africa, Central Asia, and Latin America. She builds and develops broad coalitions of diverse stakeholders from governments, businesses, NGOs, unions, and health organizations aligned on the same collective goal, working together through a process of radical collaboration, as One Team for One Planet, nurturing an ecosystem of actors dedicated to a systemic transformation of society. LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elise-buckle/ 

The Co-Founders are supported by a group of highly professional individuals who work across the tech industry, justice, and social media space, and share a deep passion for climate action, diversity, and inclusiveness. 

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

Yes, as we will continue our work for other COPs in the following year, scaling up our work and convening another Summit for COP28 in 2023. We are also preparing other proposals for connecting the network of networks, for a mentoring programme and for catalyzing finance for women entrepreneurs in Africa.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

Deliverables:

• Networking sessions with African stakeholders, The Rallying Cry, Cardano, and SCC
• Marketing materials including Cardano
• Leaders to participate in the events hosted by SC and get exposure to Cardano
• Marketing posts and Media 
• Media kit re Cardano

The process will be public and the community has high visibility of the results. 

Key Metrics:

• A number of relationships built between African entrepreneurs and investors. 
• Global intestines in work and previous projects received media coverage from The BBC (Newsnight, Women’s Hour), FT, Forbes, Vogue, Marie-Claire, and many other global media outlets. This year we will build the same connections and much more. 
• Local impact (measurable through user activity and reach)
• Local partnerships formed (size of institution + influence)

We expect a big interest in Cardano as well as establish connections to discuss high-level collaborations. 

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

The success of this proposal would be the breakdown of bias’s toward Global North investment. Success would mean that the Global South is invested in and acknowledged as the frontline of climate change impacts and represented in international dialogues and decision-making. This proposal aims to catalyse investment to grow African entrepreneurship, climate-smart solution, and agricultural enterprises. 

The success of the proposal would be in line directly and indirectly with Challenge 9 KPIs. The hope is that the proposal will encourage local action, impact, and partnership as well as international knowledge sharing. With COP27 in Africa, a central focus will be sustainably from an African perspective as well as the role of technology and blockchain as the future of sustainable finance. 

With the support from Cardano, this high-profile partnership will also platform the work that Cardano is doing and the interconnection between sustainability, inclusivity, and blockchain. 

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

New one.

Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Rating

SDG 5 - gender equality

SDG 13 - climate action

SDG 17- partnership for all goals

SDG 1- end poverty

SDG 4- quality education