The Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity is the second phase of a program from the Mastercard Foundation. The first phase was the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Rural Prosperity, an eight-year program established in 2014. That Fund supported 38 participants from 15 countries in Africa innovating and scaling financial products and services targeting the rural population with a large focus on agriculture. One major highlight is the Fund enabled over 5.3 million people to have access to financial products and services, exceeding an initial target of 1 million.
As a result of this success and the learnings gathered, the Mastercard Foundation Fund for Resilience and Prosperity, a new, seven-year, US$ 126 million Fund was established in 2023. This Fund aims to support Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) across the agriculture, climate adaptation, and digital economy sectors in 20 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The main objective of the Fund is to unlock enterprise growth and catalyze, scale up, and sustain the creation of dignified and fulfilling work opportunities for young women and men.