Sponsoring Agency: UNDP
Type of Fund: Accelerator, Incubation, Mentorship and/or Training
Deadline Available: Available
Deadline Date (mm/dd/yyyy): 05/15/2021
Size of the Fund: Not Available
UNDP in Kuwait invites Kuwaiti small and medium sized companies to express their interest in taking part in the SDG Accelerator Pilot Program.
In view of supporting Kuwaiti SMEs towards a recovery from COVID-19 impacts, UNDP Kuwait jointly with the General Secretariat of Supreme Council for Planning and Development (GSSCPD) with technical support from UNDP Denmark and Moldova offices are launching the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Accelerator Pilot for Kuwait to support three SMEs to test and demonstrate opportunities for new business models and innovative solutions linked to SDG achievements of the Kuwait National Development Plan (KNDP).
The selected SMEs will benefit from a range of supports from UNDP international mentor(s) and will master a tailored business process toolkit designed to support comprehensive launching of a new business innovation initiative in Kuwait and we will work with the SMEs from the very earliest stages to ensure successful market commercialization.
Objectives
Main objectives of the SDG Acceleration Program
• Guide selected SMEs in understanding the SDGs and the opportunities they open to the participating companies, as well as guide them in identifying the new or adjusted product/service/process supporting company sustainable development;
• Support SMEs to dissect and reconstruct their proposed SDG business models to incorporate UN Guiding Principles for Business, Human Rights, and making their internal business processes and models more inclusive, innovative and gender-balanced;
• Support companies to develop a SDG-focused impact framework enabling them to evaluate and manage their full impacts, and to build an internal capacity for such;
• Support with targeted communications on SDG alignment both inside the organization, as well as in mass media to the marketplace;
• Business match-making, and networking around SDGs as a profitable and permanent business process.
Benefits
Some of the benefits the program will bring to the participating SMEs are:
• UNDP ‘in-kind’ advisory support international expert consultancies on business modelling, business innovation and new product/service development in the SME target industry/sector.
• Exclusive access to a business innovation toolkit developed in Denmark and successfully used and applied by companies around the
• International visibility of the SME’s products/services and higher awareness in Kuwait due to UNDP’s ongoing communications and publicity activities to bring the world to the selected SMEs.
• Develop new collaborative relationships with contractors, partners and customers under UNDP’s collaborative acceleration approach for the selected SME’s SDG initiative.
• Measure the impact of the selected SMEs new business model on specific sustainable business development targets.
Eligibility Criteria
• Kuwaiti privately-owned SMEs (at least 75 percent private per the JSC SME Law) companies established at least two years before April 2021, operating in any industry sector except: production and distribution of tobacco products.
• Only profitable SMEs duly registered with Kuwait Ministry of Commerce and The National Fund for SME Development, and operating under the National SME Law.
• The applicant SME has at least 10 full-time employees.
• They are not permitted to work with SMEs who possess outstanding debts in terms of public contributions or have accumulated losses above the declared equity value.
• The managers and owners of the SMEs should not have been convicted of crimes connected to business operations.
More information at: https://procurement-notices.undp.org/view_notice.cfm?notice_id=77499
