Call for proposals
Eleven grants awarded following Call for Proposals
In June 2005 the Programme launched a one-off Call for Proposals aimed at strengthening the institutional capacity of microfinance actors in ACP countries. The Call was closed on 20 October 2005 and more than 100 proposals were received, of which 76 within the dead line. As a result the EU/ACP Microfinance Programme awarded 11 grants that will help build the capacity of microfinance institutions (MFIs) and technical service providers in Africa and the Caribbean.
The awardees use the EU/ACP's support to expand outreach through innovative delivery mechanisms and products, and to improve transparency. Most grants are for support to existing MFIs, though two are for creating new microfinance banks. The grants made range from 250,000 to 1 million Euro, for a total amount of 6,538,884 Euro. Due to funding limitations, there are no plans for additional Calls for Proposals by the Programme.
Read about the selected proposals
Lessons learned from the Call for Proposals
Call attracted strong implementing partners
The Call for Proposals was the first, centrally managed EC call on microfinance. The call was designed specifically to ensure that the strongest partners would be most likely to respond. The eleven grant recipients—all with proven track records in microfinance and a solid implementation team that could monitor and extract learning from proposed activities—proved worthy awardees.
Read the Guidelines for the Call for Proposals 
[178 KB] 
Review Annex A: Grant Application Form [199 KB]
Performance-based contracts
The EU/ACP Microfinance adapted the standard EC contract to include the notion of a performance-based agreement. Based on the performance targets for the planned activities as set by the implementing partner, the Programme selected 3-5 key indicators and fixed minimum performance thresholds on these specific targets.
The minimum performance thresholds were deliberately set lower than the performance targets submitted and represent the critical minimum performance the EU/ACP Microfinance Programme requires to approve the payment of the tranches other than the first pre-financing. The thresholds and targets were derived from the information presented by the partner to fit into their overall institutional projections.
The performance targets are monitored on a quarterly basis using a simple performance table including the targets and thresholds.
See template of a performance monitoring table [42 KB] attached to the contract
Download Annex E: Standard Contract for information [95 KB] to see the template of the contract used.
Read lessons learned [27 KB] from the Programme’s experience with performance-based contracts
