Rules and regulations

Call for applications Social & Inclusive Business Camp - Edition 2024

Article 1 – Presentation of the programme

Created in 2017 by the Agence Française de Développement, AFD, the Social & Inclusive Business Camp (SIBC) brings together and supports entrepreneurs with a positive impact in Africa (social, environmental, inclusion...) to prepare for their scale-up phase. More than just a training course, the SIBC brings together an active and dynamic community of entrepreneurs who are agents of change, and thus promotes networking, collective intelligence and peer-to-peer sharing.

All information about the Social & Inclusive Business Camp is available on the website www.socialbusinesscamp.fr

Article 2 – Subject of the call for applications

The purpose of the call for applications is to select female entrepreneurs who will form the cohort participating in the programme in 2024.

The selection is entrusted to:

Agence Française de Développement, RCS PARIS B 775 665 599. Adress : 5 rue Roland Barthes, 75598 Paris Cedex 12, represented by Campus Groupe AFD.

The aim of the competition is to:

· Identify entrepreneurs producing social or environmental impacts in Africa who have started to scale up;

· Support these entrepreneurs in their development, through a training course on scaling up, fundraising and impact measurement;

· Network the selected entrepreneurs with the SIBC community of previous editions, but also with mentors, experts and investors during the various virtual classes and final Bootcamp.

This competition is open to all entrepreneurs who apply and :

· Are women;

· Hold a high-responsibility position (director or equivalent) in the structure which they are applying with;

· Whose structure is legally registered in at least one African country;

· Whose structure has been in existence for at least 3 years;

· Proof of balanced economic model or medium-term profitability objective;

· Proof of social and/or environmental impact in Africa;

· Demonstrating a willingness to scale up and a strategy that integrates the maximisation of positive impacts

The following are not eligible for the program:

· Applications submitted by men;

· Individual applications (without a legally registered organization);

· Structures less than 3 years old;

· Structures that do NOT have a clearly demonstrated social and/or environmental mission;

· Structures that do NOT present an economic model or income generation, or that rely solely on grants;

· Public and semi-public bodies.

· Structures at the project stage (without first revenues, prototype or proof of concept)

The right of access to the call for applications is free of charge.

To submit their application, applicants must complete and validate an electronic form accessible via http://afd.wiin.io/en/applications/sibc-2024 before August 22th, 2024 at 11:59pm (GMT +2).

AFD reserves the right to close the call for applications before the set deadline once at least 150 eligible applications have been received.

For further information, a FAQ is available to address the main questions, and applicants can also contact the program by email at sibc.programme@gmail.com.

Article 3 – Timeline

· July 2th - August 22th 2024: submission of applications

· August 22th 2024 at 11:59pm (GMT +2): the call for applications will close no later than the set deadline.

The call for applications will close within 24/48 hours upon receiving at least 150 eligible applications or by August 22, 2024, at the latest.

· August – September 2024 : examination of the applications and selection of the 45 participants chosen by the consortium and selection committee

· September 2024: announcement of the selected candidates.

· September – October 2024 : on-boarding online

· October 2024: start of the programme and distance learning

· February 2025 (to be confirmed) : intensive one-week in-person bootcamp in Abidjan

We recommend that applicants ensure they can be available in the first quarter of 2025 for the bootcamp in Abidjan.

In any case, the schedule is subject to change by the program organisers in case of major events or events beyond the control of the organisers. In this case, these changes will be made known to the public and to the applicants on the call for applications platform, or to the selected participants if the event occurs after the closure of the call for applications.

Article 4 - Terms of participation

Only natural persons can participate in the Social & Inclusive Business Camp.

Applicants, also referred to as "project leaders" or “applicants”, represent their structure and must be founders, co-founders, managers or at least in a position to take strategic and operational decisions for the structure.

Applicants for the call for applications must meet the eligibility criteria and obligations set out in the present rules and regulations.

Article 5 – Description of the selection process

To participate in the program, the applicant must:

· Complete the application form with questions about the project leader, the structure, the project, its impact and its scaling strategy.

· Tick the box relating to his or her commitment to actively participate in the entire programme.

· Provide evidence of legal registration of the structure.

· Provide the structure's financial statements for the last three years.

· Provide the detailed CV of the project leader.

Applications completed by applicants to the programme as well as the deliberations of the juries are confidential. Persons having to know the contents of the applications are bound by the strictest professional secrecy.

The organisers have the right to refuse incomplete applications.

The organisers and juries associated with the programme cannot be held legally responsible for the protection of ideas, patents, files, models or trademarks invented by the candidates.

Applications are processed as follows:

· A first screening of the applications by the organisers to select eligible applications for the program and reject non-compliant applications.

· In a second step, the applications are reviewed and scored by invited juries’ examiners, according to pre-established criteria by the programme organisers.

· Eligible and scored applications are presented to a selection committee that validates the final cohort. The selection committee is led by the Agence Française de Développement, which chooses its members from among the programme's partners.

The organisers reserve the right to contact applicants whose applications are not clear enough to provide further details.

The indicative criteria for the evaluation of applications are as follows (non-exhaustive list):

- Innovative nature of the proposed solution

- Potential of the business model and strategy for scaling up

- Social impact and contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals

Article 6 - Applications

The application form is available on the website https://www.socialbusinesscamp.com/ from July 2nd to August 22nd, 2024. The Campus Group AFD reserves the right to close the call for applications before the official deadline, depending on the number of applications received. The call for applications will close upon receiving 150 eligible applications or by August 22, 2024, at the latest.

Application forms must be completed online starting July 2 at 12:00 pm (GMT+2) on the Wiin application platform for the SIBC: http://afd.wiin.io/en/applications/sibc-2024

Applications are only accepted in French or English.

Once the account has been created, you can log back into your file at any time until final validation. Only complete applications are taken into account.

Applications must be fully completed. They must include all the requested documents (proof of legal registration, financial statements for the last three years, detailed CV of the project leader). Any incomplete file is rejected and consequently not validated. The files will be forwarded to the members of the jury. Please be careful with your spelling.

Eligible applications will be compiled in a file that will be presented to the selection committee, which will choose the final cohort. In order to ensure maximum objectivity on the grades attributed to the candidates, the files are evaluated at 2 times, before consolidating the grades.

Article 7 - Verification of Application Eligibility

The eligibility of applications is validated by the program organisers based on the information submitted through the online form and the supporting documents.

Article 8 - Evaluation of Applications

The quality of each application is evaluated by panels of examiners invited by AFD, who will have access to the content of the online forms but not the supporting documents. Each application will be reviewed by several examiners who will each assign a score, based on three evaluation criteria: Innovation, Impact, and Development Potential. The examiners will likely be a mix of AFD Group staff, experts, actors from entrepreneurial ecosystems in Africa, and program alumni.

Article 9 – Selection Committee

The committee will be chaired by AFD and will be composed of a representative of the AFD Campus, the SIBC programme coordinator and possible representatives of institutions invited by AFD.

Eligible applications are sent to the members of the selection committee at least one week before the committee meeting. Each jury member reviews the applications and the pre-established grades prior to the meeting.

The committee is a time for discussion and deliberation around the applications in order to agree on a cohort of 45 participants. This final selection takes into account the overall balance of the cohort: grades, sectors, genders, nationalities, etc.

Jury members are sovereign in their decisions and are not obliged to give reasons for their decisions, which are without appeal.

Article 10 – Announcement of winners

Selected entrepreneurs are notified by e-mail and/or telephone between mid-September and mid-October.

Eligible candidates but not selected into the program are also notified by e-mail.

The cohort will be officially announced on the SIBC website and social networks after confirmation of availability to participate.

Article 11 – Commitment of candidates

All applicants to the Social & Inclusive Business Camp commit to:

· Read and accept these rules and regulations fully and without reservation.

· Provide accurate information in her application file. If it turns out that all or part of the information provided by the candidate is untrue, the candidate may be eliminated immediately from the competition without any possible right for complaint. Moreover, any selected candidate who has provided false information will have her selection cancelled and may be sued for reimbursement of any sums received.

· Not to reproduce and/or use the trademark, company name, logo or any distinctive sign of a third party without its formal agreement.

· Not to infringe the privacy and image rights of a third party. Not to transmit elements that infringe the intellectual property rights or the rights of third parties and in particular trademark law, patent law, personal rights or copyright. It is expressly understood that each candidate guarantees the organisers against any recourse by a third party claiming that the candidate has not complied with one or more of the above rules.

· Actively participate in the e-learning programme, mentoring and the Bootcamp in Africa if selected.

· Expressly authorise, in the event of selection, the organisers to exploit, use and disseminate their name, first name, image, city and country, via all media, print and internet, as well as the characteristic elements of their activity and project. They renounce only for the needs of this contest to claim any right on their image and accept in advance the diffusion of the photographs that may be taken and videos shot during the boot camp.

· To take part, in case of selection, in public and press relations operations relating to the programme, and to answer questions from journalists with whom the organisers may put them in contact.

· For a period of one year at the end of the programme, the selected entrepreneurs commit to inform the organisers of the evolution of their business and the achievements of their companies.

A contract of agreement will be submitted to the selected candidates in order to agree on the terms and conditions of participation in the bootcamp, including the minimum threshold for participation in the programme.

Article 12 – Responsibility

The organisers cannot be held responsible for any telecommunication problem, connection difficulties, etc.

Participation in the programme implies knowledge and acceptance of the characteristics and limitations of the Internet.

Consequently, the organisers cannot be held responsible under any circumstances, without this list being exhaustive:

· for the transmission and/or reception of any data and/or information on the Internet;

· for any malfunction of the Internet network preventing the proper conduct/operation of the call for applications;

· for the loss of any data;

· for the consequences of any virus, computer bug, anomaly, technical failure;

· for any damage caused to a candidate's computer;

· for any technical, hardware and software failure of any kind that prevented or limited the possibility of participating in the programme or damaged a candidate's system.

It is specified that the organisers cannot be held responsible for any direct or indirect damage resulting from any interruption or malfunction for any reason whatsoever, or for any direct or indirect damage that would result, in any way whatsoever, from a connection to the platform http://afd.wiin.io/en/applications/sibc-2024

It is the responsibility of each applicant to take all appropriate measures to protect his or her own data and/or software stored on his or her computer equipment against any attack. The connection of any person to the platform http://afd.wiin.io/en/applications/sibc-2024 as well as their participation is done under their full responsibility.

Article 13 – Disqualification

The organisers reserve the right to disqualify any candidate whose actions or words in the context of this programme are indicative of inappropriate behaviour towards other candidates, organisers, or partners including bad faith, lack of fair play, etc.

Article 14 – Consultation of the rules and regulations

The present rules are available on request to the organiser by e-mail at sibc.programme@gmail.com and can be consulted on the platform http://afd.wiin.io/en/applications/sibc-2024, under the heading "Rules and regulations”

Article 15 – Personal information and right of access

In accordance with the provisions of Law No. 78-17 of January 6, 1978 relating to computers, files and freedoms, participants have the right to access and rectify the information provided by contacting:

Agence Française de Développement

5 rue Roland Barthes, 75598 Paris Cedex 12

Article 16 – Personal data

The personal data concerning candidates collected in the context of the call for applications are compulsory and necessary for the processing of their application and the management of the operation.

The processing of these personal data is justified by the legal basis of carrying out pre-contractual formalities, which are measures prior to the signature of a contract and which facilitate the conclusion of a contract.

The personal data are intended solely for the use of the programme organisers, the associated consortium members, the Agence Française de Développement and the members of the selection committee.

Sensitive information about the applicants’ structures will be disclosed to the evaluation juryies’ examiners. However, the examiners will not have access to the personal information of the project owner.

Persons with access to the files are bound by professional secrecy with regard to this data. However, the organisers shall be authorised by the participant to communicate data concerning him/her to subcontractors and/or service providers for management purposes relating to the programme. The information communicated in the context of the programme shall be used solely for the purposes of the programme.

No other use of personal data will be made. No profiling will be carried out and, more generally, no automated decisions will be taken on the basis of the data collected.

Furthermore, no commercial use will be made of these data.

The storage period of personal data will be limited to the time necessary to achieve the purposes for which they were collected, namely the selection of candidates to participate in the SIBC programme. These data will not be retained after the programme has ended.

The organisers undertake, with regard to the persons concerned, to take all useful precautions to preserve the security of the information and in particular to prevent it from being communicated to unauthorised third parties.

The personal data may give rise to the exercise of the right of access, rectification, opposition under the conditions provided for by Law No. 78-17 of January 6, 1978 relating to computers, files and freedoms by writing to: Agence Française de Développement, 5 rue Roland Barthes, 75598 Paris Cedex 12.

Participants may also exercise their rights to the removal, limitation of processing, portability of their data and define guidelines applicable after death, by writing to the address indicated above. Any participant also has the right to file a complaint with the Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL).

Article 17 – Miscellaneous provisions

In the event of circumstances beyond their control, the organisers of the Social & Inclusive Business Camp reserve the right to postpone, shorten, extend or cancel this programme without being held liable for this. For the purposes of these rules, the Covid-19 pandemic and the governmental measures that relate to it and/or are the consequence of it constitute circumstances beyond their control.

Similarly, the organisers of the Social & Inclusive Business Camp cannot be held responsible for any changes affecting the terms and conditions of the program.

Any modification of the present rules will come into force from the moment they are put online and any candidate will be deemed to have accepted them by the simple fact of participating in the programme, from the date on which the modification comes into force.

Any violation of these rules will result in the cancellation of participation in the programme and the reimbursement of any sums paid, without any possible claim by the candidate.

In the event of a dispute relating to the provisions of the present rules or the application of the latter, the difficulty raised will be settled by the Agence Française de Développement, the programme's sponsor.

Failing this, only the Tribunal de Grande Instance de Paris will be competent to hear and rule on this difficulty.

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