Request for Proposal For Acceleration Fund

RFP-WI-WEECAP-2025-10-07
Issued: October 22, 2025
Women Economic Empowerment through Cashew Processing (WEECAP) Program
Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire

The WEECAP Consortium invites experienced and visionary accelerators to compete for the opportunity to design and manage the Acceleration Fund — a high-impact platform built to unleash the full potential of Africa’s cashew sector.

The Fund is not a training project. It’s a market-driven engine for growth — identifying and backing ventures with the talent, innovation, and ambition to redefine how cashew is processed, marketed, and financed across West Africa.

The selected partner will lead the entire acceleration lifecycle, from venture scouting and cohort design to tailored mentorship, investor matchmaking, and management of catalytic capital. Beyond program delivery, this role means helping shape the region’s next wave of investable agribusinesses — driving measurable results in jobs, inclusion, and competitiveness.

WEECAP — implemented across Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Guinea-Bissau in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation — is redefining how inclusive growth happens in Africa’s cashew sector. The program’s mission is simple but bold: to turn cashew processing into a powerful engine of job creation and private investment for young women and men.

Yet, one challenge continues to hold back transformation — the absence of tailored, timely capital and the ecosystem support that promising ventures need to break through. Many entrepreneurs have proven ideas and growing demand, but lack access to the networks, technical expertise, and smart finance that would unlock their next stage of growth.

The Acceleration Fund was created to close that gap. By pairing high-quality acceleration services with catalytic financing, it helps the most dynamic ventures scale faster, hire more people, and compete more effectively. Over WEECAP’s lifetime, the Fund will back up to 180 innovative ventures — each one contributing to a more competitive, inclusive, and sustainable cashew economy.

For a detailed overview of this fund, see the “Detailed Specification” section.

WEECAP is looking for accelerators, venture studios, and ecosystem builders ready to help shape the future of Africa’s cashew economy. Applicants should bring both proven operational excellence and the creative edge needed to turn promising agribusinesses into scalable success stories.

Ideal applicants include firms, associations, or consortiums with experience in:

• Managing acceleration or incubation programs that deliver measurable growth for SMEs and start-ups
• Designing and running transparent, merit-based cohort selection processes
• Delivering hands-on workshops, mentoring, and investment-readiness training
• Building mentor and investor networks that connect entrepreneurs to real market opportunities
• Overseeing catalytic funds with strong financial management and compliance systems
• Providing post-investment support and tailored business development services
• Monitoring, evaluating, and learning from program performance to drive results
• Working in the cashew or broader agricultural value chain (strongly preferred)
• Enabling job creation and inclusive growth across youth- and women-led enterprises
• Operating effectively in Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and/or Guinea-Bissau

WEECAP especially welcomes:

• Women- and youth-led organizations that bring fresh perspectives to enterprise growth
• Consortiums that combine complementary strengths across acceleration, finance, and value-chain expertise
• Partners with a strong track record of empowering women and young entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses

The Women Economic Empowerment through Cashew Processing Program (WEECAP) aims at supporting young women and men in the cashew value chain to unravel job opportunities created by increased local processing specifically by women and young women. By unlocking the barriers in each component of the value chain, for the more financially vulnerable populations of women and young women, and with a focus on enhancing competitivity, and inclusivity for young women processors, service providers and farmers, we plan to create dignified and rewarding jobs for 330,000 young women and men while integrating efforts throughout the value chain and the broader cashew ecosystem.

The program is articulated around 5 objectives, for a strong, resilient, competitive, and attractive cashew value chain for young women and men.

• Ensuring women especially young women are the one benefiting the most from the interventions while engaging young people and improving their environmental and social safeguarding.
• Innovative financial inclusion support through the young women and men owned processing units
• Supply ensured through young producers and producers’ organizations.
• Strong competitiveness support and access to market especially for women processors,
• Policy, safeguarding, and systems that brings a sustainable systemic approach which supports local consumption.

This program will achieve the following results and impact in Guinea Bissau, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal:

• 330,000 Youth in Work.
• 70% young women, including 6% of people with disabilities
• Over 200 processors, micro enterprises, supply/production chain service providers and producer organizations benefit from improved upstream and downstream linkages.
• 200% increase in domestic processing capacity.
• $150 million in new commitments and private sector investment leveraged by the program to support an inclusive, integrated, competitive cashew processing industry.
• Over 850,000 entrepreneurs, processors and farmers will benefit from capacity building, access to finance and systemic changes.

Submission Details

Proposals must be received no later than 5:00 PM GMT on Monday, November 17, 2025.  Late submissions will not be accepted.  All proposals are to be submitted following the guidelines listed below. Telephone requests will not be honored.

Winrock International may request additional documentation after the bid deadline.

The delivery address to be used for all submissions is:

Khar Dakono
Email:  weecap.procurement@winrock.org  

Inquiries/questions must be received no later than Monday, November 3, 2025, (GMT)and must be submitted via e-mail to weecap.procurement@winrock.org Winrock will review and respond to all potential offers by Monday, November 10, 2025

Winrock will evaluate complete vendor proposals to determine which proposal represents the best value to Winrock.  This is an unsealed solicitation request.  Winrock reserves the right to negotiate with the bidders with or without discussion.

Electronic submissions in response to this Request for Proposal will be accepted as long as they meet the following criteria:

• Proposals must be submitted electronically in PDF format
• The subject line of the email should be: “RFP – Acceleration Fund Manager – [Your Organization Name]”

All Organizations applying must complete the RFP Application Form (Annex B) and submit the required attachments listed in the checklist. This includes:

• Technical Proposal narrative describing the proposed acceleration program design, organizational experience, and team
• CVs of key personnel or team leads
• Organizational profile and operational footprint
• Examples of past work managing acceleration programs or funds, especially with women/youth-led firms
• Client references
• Detailed cost proposal and budget breakdown
• (Optional) Anticipated key performance indicators (KPIs) and outcome metrics
• Validity of bid: 60 days starting from the submission date.
• Cost quoted must include unit price and total price in XOF
• Include VAT if applicable
• Payment terms and complete banking information

All materials may be submitted in English or French.

Bid Documents to Include

• Legal Business Name
• Authorized contact including address, phone number and email
• Proof of business registration and nationality
• Technical Proposal including detailed approach and work plan
• Financial Proposal including a detailed budget breakdown, including professional fees, travel costs, and other expenses, and cost justification
• CVs of key personnel or team leads
• A list of previous similar contracts completed successfully with the names and contact information of clients.

Award

Winrock anticipates to notify successful bidder and provide agreement for signature the week of December 15, 2025.

• Winrock will run an open and fair competitive bidding process.
• As warranted, Winrock may increase or decrease the quantities.