The Mastercard Foundation has established the $200 million Africa Growth Fund (MFAGF). For African businesses, MFAGF is a fund of funds that works through African investment vehicles to promote early-stage, growth-oriented SMEs on the continent.
Along with funds for investment vehicles, the MFAGF will offer a business development facility for the companies in their portfolio.
Gender-lens investing (GLI) will be used by the fund-of-funds initiative to help the Young Africa Works strategy of the Mastercard Foundation. This strategy aims to give 30 million African youth, especially young women, access to meaningful and respectable jobs by 2030.
The Fund-of-Funds has already hired two investment groups that help entrepreneurs grow, one in East Africa and one in West Africa.
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The fund of funds is risky and important because it helps bring in more money for African entrepreneurs by bolstering and lowering the risks of African investment vehicles that are working to make gender equality in entrepreneurship a reality.
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People often think of high-risk investment vehicles that are owned, run, and based in Africa. African SMEs struggle to get the funding they require to grow, which limits their potential.
“The MFAGF has built up a promising pipeline of 180 diverse investment vehicles, including early-stage, growth, debt, and seed VC, as well as non-traditional funds,” explains Samuel Akyianu, MFAGF Chief of Staff and Managing Director. “Five have gone through our investment screening process, two female-led investment vehicles are past due diligence and received a favorable investment decision,” Akyianu added
Akyianu says that the main goal is to make investments that have a positive, measurable effect on society and the environment and help build a stronger, more dynamic investment ecosystem in Africa. He said that the Fund-of-Funds is committed to keeping track of and sharing information about how well all investments are doing in terms of gender, diversity, inclusion, social impact, and environmental sustainability in order to give Africa’s young people good jobs.
Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund Implementation
The Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund is run by a group of collaborators that also includes Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P) and Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners (ESP), Genesis Analytics, the Criterion Institute, and Africa Communications Media Group. They collaborate to achieve the third overarching goal.
I&P is in charge of locating, assessing, and supporting the investment vehicles as the Fund Advisor for the Fund of Funds.
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About MasterCard Foundation
The Toronto, Ontario-based organization has funded projects in 49 nations. In 2018, the Mastercard Foundation changed its focus to focus on Africa through its Young Africa Works strategy specifically.
The main goals of the foundation’s projects are to reduce economic and gender inequality, improve access to high-quality education, create more opportunities for decent work, and boost economic growth as a whole. Funding is mostly handled by bilateral allocations through postsecondary institutions, research institutes, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector, as well as multilateral allocations through organizations like the many United Nations agencies.
Since its founding, the Mastercard Foundation has worked in 34 African countries, but as of 2019, it plans to concentrate its involvement more deeply in 10 countries on the continent. The foundation’s mission is to support young Africans in moving out of poverty through improved “access to education, financial services, and skills training.” As of 2018, the company said it had assets worth USD 17.4 billion and spent USD 298 million each year. It aspires to a world in which everyone can advance their education and succeed.
In 2019, Reeta Roy, CEO of the Mastercard Foundation, said something at the presidential conference of the African Green Revolution Forum. “Our goal is clear. The goal is to reveal what is hidden. “To give young people the opportunity to generate respectable employment where none now exists.”