The Fertilizer for Food Innovation Challenge is an open competition designed to identify and accelerate innovative solutions and business models that can increase the production, distribution, or access to affordable and effective fertilizer within Ethiopian agriculture value chains. The Challenge will focus on innovations and enterprises that advance one or more of the following objectives:

• Unlock affordable and immediate access to fertilizer for Ethiopian farmers;
• Improve the resilience and increase the production of Ethiopia’s fertilizer supply chain;
• Increase the adoption of good agricultural practices (GAP), especially in the application of fertilizer to crops to optimize yields; and
• Benefit (directly or indirectly) base of the pyramid (BoP) market segments, women, youth, or other vulnerable groups in need of improved fertilizer, food security, jobs, and improved livelihoods.

CATALYZE MS4G is seeking applications from private sector businesses, social enterprises and market-oriented non-governmental organizations with an innovative service delivery approach, product or technology, financing solution, or business model that addresses one or more of the following challenges impacting the availability, accessibility, affordability, and use of fertilizer in Ethiopia:

• The lack of cost-appropriate fertilizer or related services for use by BoP market segments (i.e., end-users with low purchasing power parity).
• Limited end-user access to finance to purchase fertilizer.
• Insufficient user-centered design in new products or services designed to increase the value of the fertilizer value chain.
• Poorly developed supply chains or systems to manufacture, distribute, or sell fertilizer-related products or services.
• Absence of proper financing tools to fund the expansion of enterprises selling innovative fertilizer-related products or services.
• Insufficient social, behavior, or change communication strategies to end-users on adopting best practices when using available fertilizer products.
• Cultural norms/beliefs and access to and control of agricultural inputs, assets and patterns of power and decision-making that could prevent equal participation between men and women.
• Institutional and organizational barriers faced by innovators, as well as their customers/end-users.
• Insufficient planning for unintended environmental and social consequences.
• The lack of customized fertilizer products and soil amendments for specific soil types and crops, as well as the knowledge of how best to use such products.
• The lack of fertilizer products on the market that enhance or improve soil nutrition and productivity.

Specifically, CATALYZE MS4G will prioritize applicants that:

• Operate with a financially sustainable business model as a private company and are able to demonstrate a revenue track record reaching the targeted populations listed above within Ethiopian agricultural value chains. The Fertilizer for Food Innovation Challenge is focused on financially viable companies that can demonstrate a commercially proven revenue model capable of increasing the production, distribution, or access to affordable and effective fertilizer within Ethiopian agriculture value chains.
• Have a well-defined plan for sustainable growth. Successful applicants will have a clearly articulated plan in existence or under development for how the technical assistance and/or grant capital provided by the challenge will increase Ethiopians’ access to clean water, safe sanitation, and use of improved hygiene practices and enable long term scaling without successive donor support. All innovators must prove they can remain financially viable without grant funding after the challenge has ended.
• Understand the local enabling environment. Applicants must be able to articulate the social, environmental, institutional, legal, and regulatory challenges to sustainably scale and expand their innovation and describe how they will overcome those barriers and embed their innovation within these contexts to have the intended immediate impact.
• Promote user-centered design and demonstrate direct or indirect benefits for the BoP. The Challenge will emphasize the importance of the end-user feedback loops in all facets of the program to unlock and scale access to and use of fertilizer in Ethiopia. Successful applicants will demonstrate an understanding of the needs of target end-users and customers. Successful applicants will also need to demonstrate how their solution is adapted to the needs of target customer segments and will result in direct or indirect impacts on BoP customer segments, either through the expanded use of a fertilizer product service, or creation of livelihoods opportunities through the delivery of fertilizer products or services.
• Show how their innovation benefits women. Women and men use, access, and utilize fertilizer in different ways. By including a gender perspective into business strategies and plans, the potential of an innovation to scale increases. CATALYZE MS4G will prioritize applications that with innovations that focus on women. This may include innovations that are oriented towards the production, distribution, or access to affordable and effective fertilizer within a gender lens, or business models that provide better employment or income generation opportunities for women or help transform women’s roles in their communities and households, and workload.
• Offer the potential for significant impact in a 12 – 18-month time period. Successful applicants will be able to demonstrate how targeted support from CATALYZE MS4G will unlock the ability of the innovation or enterprise to accelerate and scale the accelerate the production, distribution, or access to affordable and effective fertilizer in a relatively short period of time.