Overview
Development Finance and Impact Fund Research Support Jobs in Rwanda at VNU Sénégal/Gambie
Title: Development Finance and Impact Fund Research Support
Company: VNU Sénégal/Gambie
Location: Rwanda
Description of assignment (DoA) details
Attention! Please note that this is an Online Volunteering assignment. It's a short-term, task-based and non-contractual remote assignment; Online Volunteers are not UN Volunteers and do not receive any allowance or entitlements as part of the Online Volunteer assignment but receive a certificate of appreciation after successful completion. In addition, UNV is not involved in the selection process or collaboration.
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United Nations Development Programmea day ago
Development Finance and Impact Fund Research Support
Rwanda
8 weeks
2
assignment(s)
Competitive recruitment
Advertisement end date:06/07/2026
General
Description of assignment title
Development Finance and Impact Fund Research Support
Assignment country
Rwanda
Expected start date
Invalid Date
Number of Assignments
2
For how many hours per week will the volunteer be required?
11 – 15 hours per week
Host entity
United Nations Development Programme
Modality
Online
Duration
8 weeks
Sustainable Development Goal
- Partnerships for the goals
Details
Mission and objectives
timbuktoo Africa Innovation Foundation is a pan-African innovation initiative anchored in UNDP's Regional Bureau for Africa. The Foundation's mission is to support African founders to start, grow, and scale — targeting 100,000 enrolled startups, 1,000 scaled companies, and the mobilisation of USD 1 billion in catalytic and commercial capital for African innovation. The Foundation's investment architecture is built on a four-layer blended capital stack: UNDP catalytic anchor capital, development finance institution (DFI) concessional funding, impact fund mandate capital, and commercial co-investment. The Chief Investment Officer leads the Foundation's relationships with DFIs, impact funds, and institutional investors across the continent and globally, and is responsible for building the capital mobilisation pipeline that connects enrolled companies to appropriate institutional investors. A structured, current, and well-researched database of DFIs and impact funds with active mandates to invest in African startups and innovation ecosystems is a foundational tool for this work. It enables the CIO's team to identify the right institutions for each deal, understand mandate constraints and deployment criteria in advance of outreach, and map the full institutional investor landscape against timbuktoo's enrolled company pipeline. This database does not exist in structured form and is needed as a priority input to the CIO's capital mobilisation strategy for 2026.
Context
timbuktoo Africa Innovation Foundation is a pan-African innovation initiative anchored in UNDP's Regional Bureau for Africa. The Foundation's mission is to support African founders to start, grow, and scale — targeting 100,000 enrolled startups, 1,000 scaled companies, and the mobilisation of USD 1 billion in catalytic and commercial capital for African innovation. The Foundation's investment architecture is built on a four-layer blended capital stack: UNDP catalytic anchor capital, development finance institution (DFI) concessional funding, impact fund mandate capital, and commercial co-investment. The Chief Investment Officer leads the Foundation's relationships with DFIs, impact funds, and institutional investors across the continent and globally, and is responsible for building the capital mobilisation pipeline that connects enrolled companies to appropriate institutional investors. A structured, current, and well-researched database of DFIs and impact funds with active mandates to invest in African startups and innovation ecosystems is a foundational tool for this work. It enables the CIO's team to identify the right institutions for each deal, understand mandate constraints and deployment criteria in advance of outreach, and map the full institutional investor landscape against timbuktoo's enrolled company pipeline. This database does not exist in structured form and is needed as a priority input to the CIO's capital mobilisation strategy for 2026.
Task type
Administration
Task description
We are looking for two online volunteers with a background in finance, economics, or international development to research and compile a structured database of development finance institutions and impact funds with active investment or co-investment mandates in African startup and innovation ecosystems. Using publicly available sources — including institution websites, annual reports, fund prospectuses, investment policy statements, OECD DAC statistics, and published news coverage — the volunteer will profile a minimum of 40 institutions across the following categories: Multilateral development finance institutions (e.g. IFC, AfDB, PROPARCO, DEG, FMO, British International Investment, Swedfund, Norfund, OPIC/DFC) Regional and national DFIs with African mandates (e.g. Afreximbank, DBSA, TDB, CDC Group successor entities, national development banks) Impact funds and blended finance vehicles actively deploying into African startups or innovation ecosystems (e.g. funds with stated SDG mandate capital, gender-lens investing mandates, or climate-innovation mandates in Africa) Sovereign wealth funds and foundations with publicly stated African innovation investment programmes For each institution, the volunteer will document the following fields in a structured spreadsheet: One completed, structured spreadsheet profiling a minimum of 40 DFIs and impact funds with active African innovation and startup investment mandates — formatted to the Foundation's template and delivered within 8 weeks. The volunteer will aim for a minimum of 40 profiled institutions, with at least 8 entries in each of the multilateral DFI, regional DFI, and impact fund categories. All entries must be based on verifiable public sources, with the source URL recorded for each institution.
Assignment requirements
Required Experience
Background in finance, economics, international development, or a related field — sufficient to understand investment mandate terminology, fund structures, and DFI operating models Strong research skills: ability to find, verify, and synthesise information from institutional annual reports, fund prospectuses, and policy documents Proficiency in Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets for structured data entry across multiple fields Attention to detail in recording mandate criteria, ticket sizes, instrument types, and source references accurately Familiarity with the African investment or development finance landscape is a significant advantage Prior exposure to impact investing, blended finance, or development finance institutions — through study, work, or research — is strongly preferred
Languages
French, Level: Working knowledge, Desirable English, Level: Fluent, Required
Other information
Volunteerism is understood as a wide range of activities undertaken of free will, for the general public good, for which monetary reward is not the principal motivating factor.
Inclusivity statement
United Nations Volunteers is an equal opportunity programme that welcomes applications from qualified professionals. We are committed to achieving diversity in terms of gender, care protected characteristics. As part of their adherence to the values of UNV, all UN Volunteers commit themselves to combat any form of discrimination, and to promoting respect for human rights and individual dignity, without distinction of a person’s race, sex, gender identity, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, disability, pregnancy, age, language, social origin or other status.
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