Global development finance organisation FINCA International has unveiled the winners of the Rupert W. Scofield Vision Fund, a grant programme designed to test and scale bold poverty-fighting innovations across emerging markets.
The fund created in honour of FINCA co-founder and former chief executive Rupert Scofield invites staff, customers and FINCA Ventures investees to develop new solutions capable of advancing the organisation’s mission to end poverty and generate lasting economic impact in underserved communities.
This year’s competition attracted more than 75 applications from around the world, reflecting growing momentum behind locally driven innovation addressing climate resilience, financial inclusion and agricultural productivity across developing economies.
Four winning projects spanning Zambia, Ghana and Uganda illustrate how grassroots entrepreneurship and technology-led solutions are increasingly shaping Africa’s development agenda.
Clean Energy Innovation Targets Zambia’s Rural Energy Crisis
One of the winning initiatives comes from Rachael Mbewe and Njunga Mbangu of FINCA Zambia, whose project “Biogas for Clean Energy” seeks to address the environmental and health risks associated with traditional cooking fuels.
“In rural Zambia, firewood is the primary source of energy,” the project documentation states, a dependency that contributes to widespread deforestation and serious household health hazards.
The initiative proposes a community-targeted biogas production system that converts organic waste into renewable fuel for cooking and heating. By replacing firewood with biogas, the project aims to improve air quality, reduce deforestation and expand access to reliable household energy.
Across sub-Saharan Africa, roughly 80% of households still rely on biomass fuels such as firewood or charcoal for cooking, a dependence the World Bank says contributes significantly to forest degradation and indoor air pollution.
If scaled effectively, community-based biogas systems could become a commercially viable rural energy model, opening new pathways for climate-aligned entrepreneurship across the continent.
Climate-Smart Agriculture Targets Dry-Season Income Loss
Another winning concept comes from Fluid Finance Technologies, a FINCA Ventures investee working to unlock new financing solutions for agriculture.
The company’s project “Greenhouse Nursery Financing” addresses a structural challenge faced by millions of African farmers: seasonal inactivity.
“Many smallholder farmers face inactivity or low productivity during the dry season,” the project states. In northern Ghana, more than 96% of farmers can only farm four months each year, dramatically restricting income potential.
Fluid Finance proposes establishing greenhouse nurseries that supply improved seedlings, enabling farmers to maintain production during dry months. The model could increase crop yields by up to 40% during the off-season, according to the proposal.
The concept aligns with a broader shift toward climate-smart agriculture, as African agritech startups increasingly combine financing tools with technology to stabilise production in regions vulnerable to climate volatility.
Agriculture still accounts for over 60% of employment across Africa, yet access to finance remains one of the sector’s biggest barriers to productivity and growth.
Agroforestry Solution Tackles Food Insecurity in Uganda
Food security challenges are the focus of another Vision Fund project led by Esther Namaganda of FINCA Uganda Limited (MDI).
Her initiative, “Fruit Trees & Home Gardens for Food Security,” responds to a growing imbalance in agricultural production in eastern Uganda.
The shift toward cash crops such as arabica coffee has encouraged many communities to prioritise export earnings over subsistence farming. The consequences have been severe: declining food production and environmental degradation.
“Producing cash crops like arabica coffee has led eastern Uganda communities to concentrate less on food production, causing food insecurity,” the project explains. The same agricultural shift has also contributed to deforestation, which has triggered flooding and landslides that have destroyed infrastructure and taken lives.
The proposed intervention promotes agroforestry – planting fruit trees alongside household vegetable gardens, enabling families to diversify diets, restore soil health and generate income.
By integrating food production with environmental restoration, the model reflects a growing continental push toward nature-based agricultural solutions.
Immersive Technology Targets Financial Literacy Gap for Women
The fourth winning project focuses on financial inclusion one of the most persistent barriers to economic mobility across developing markets.
Led by Paula Kiura of FINCA’s Poverty Eradication Lab, the initiative “VR:AR:AI Financial Literacy for Women” seeks to deploy immersive technology to close knowledge gaps in rural financial systems.
“In Zambia, women in rural areas face barriers to financial inclusion driven by social norms, low literacy, limited trust in formal banking and unfamiliarity with digital tools,” the proposal states. These barriers often trap women in persistent cycles of poverty.
The project proposes delivering financial education through virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and artificial intelligence, enabling women to learn through contextualised, immersive experiences.
If successful, the approach could represent a new frontier for development finance, merging emerging technologies with behavioural education to expand economic participation.
Globally, the gender gap in financial access remains significant, particularly in rural regions where digital banking adoption is still uneven.
Innovation as a Poverty-Reduction Strategy
By funding these projects, FINCA is doubling down on an increasingly influential theory of change, that locally driven innovation can produce scalable solutions to entrenched development challenges.
The Rupert Scofield Vision Fund was established precisely to test that hypothesis. By providing grant capital to early-stage ideas within the FINCA ecosystem including employees, customers and venture partners, the organisation aims to accelerate experimentation in sectors ranging from energy and agriculture to financial services.
For Africa’s growing community of social entrepreneurs and fintech innovators, such programmes offer more than recognition. They provide early catalytic funding, often the hardest capital to secure in emerging markets.
As African economies grapple with climate shocks, population growth and persistent inequality, the Vision Fund’s winners demonstrate how targeted innovation rooted in local realities can generate solutions with global relevance.
From renewable energy systems in rural Zambia to immersive financial education tools for women, the projects share a common premise that poverty reduction is increasingly being driven not by aid alone, but by entrepreneurial experimentation at the intersection of technology, finance and community development.
For FINCA, the message is clear. The next generation of impact solutions will come from those closest to the problems and increasingly, they will come from Africa.
