Background

United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) and Inclusive Finance

UNCDF provides investment capital and technical support to both the public and the private sector. It provides capital financing -- in the forms of grants, soft loans and credit enhancement – and the technical expertise to unleash sustainable financing at the local level.

UNCDF’s work on inclusive finance seeks to develop inclusive financial systems and ensure that a range of financial products is available to all segments of society, at a reasonable cost, and on a sustainable basis. UNCDF supports a wide range of providers (e.g. microfinance institutions, banks, cooperatives, money transfer companies) and a variety of financial products and services (e.g. savings, credit, insurance, payments, and remittances). UNCDF also supports newer delivery channels (e.g. mobile phone networks) that offer tremendous potential for scale.

 CleanStart Programme

The CleanStart Programme’s vision is to dramatically expand consumer financing for low-income consumers who want to transition to cleaner and more efficient energy. To make this happen it partners with microfinance institutions and energy enterprises – offering seed capital and advice – to test scalable financing solutions in varying market conditions.

As a global programme, CleanStart aims to support low-income consumers in six countries to transition to cleaner and more efficient energy through microfinance by 2017.

The programme is designed to provide risk capital and technical assistance to competitively selected financial service providers and energy enterprises to:

  • Develop and refine scalable consumer financing models (Output 1: Finance for Clean Energy);
  • Increase the ‘scale’ potential of these models by tackling critical bottlenecks in the value chain (e.g. distribution, consumer awareness) (Output 2: Technical Assistance for Clean Energy);
  • Make research and tools generated in the process widely available to the industry (Output 3: Global Knowledge and Learning);
  • Advocate for positive industry-wide changes and broker partnerships with upstream value chain actors (e.g. investors, policy makers) (Output 4: Advocacy and Partnerships);
  • CleanStart encourages the brokering of risk-sharing partnerships between downstream as well as upstream value chain actors, as well as de-risking some investment opportunities. In so doing, CleanStart is supporting a range of enterprises beyond microfinance institutions, and promoting financing solutions that go beyond credit for energy.

CleanStart was launched as a global programme in 2012. CleanStart was first launched at the country-level in Nepal where it is partnering with four financial services providers that provide energy lending for solar and improved cooking solutions.

In addition to Nepal, CleanStart will focus its activities on Uganda, Ethiopia and possibly Tanzania and/or Cambodia. CleanStart will focus on these key interventions to promote energy financing; and selectively deploy these depending on market needs and where CleanStart can add most value:

  • Support microfinance institutions on energy lending through grants and technical assistance;
  • Support energy enterprises with viable business models to achieve market breakthroughs through seed capital and technical assistance;
  • Provide guarantee to microfinance institutions and banks lending to MSMEs and SMEs;
  • Strategically collaborate with UNCDF’s financial inclusion and local development finance initiatives in areas such as mobile money (MM4P), demand-side surveys and research (MAP), and private-public financing for energy projects;
  • Develop toolkits for energy lending and produce consumer-side impact research;
  • Expand rural energy finance footprint in partnership with Participatory Microfinance Group for Africa (PAMIGA), a network of locally-owned African microfinance institutions developing rural finance in sub-Saharan African countries. PAMIGA is currently implementing their Energy and Microfinance Programme  in Cameroon, Ethiopia, and planning for Burkina Faso, Senegal, Tanzania, and Kenya. CleanStart is part funding this Programme with a view to co-benefit from the knowledge and experiences that are generated from it;
  • Engage closely with government partners and regional/global initiatives to influence high-level dialogue and policies that help create an enabling environment for energy markets for low-income markets to flourish.

Monitoring and evaluation

 The objective of CleanStart’s monitoring and evaluation activities is to:

  • Measure performance of energy financing portfolios of grantees;
  • Build insights into why people transition to cleaner and more efficient energy, how people use it and how energy impacts different aspects of people’s lives;
  • Build insights into how seed capital and advisory support can help accelerate the process of building an energy market that works for the poor;
  • Influence public awareness and dialogue on the value of distributed energy in improving energy access and people’s livelihoods.

CleanStart already has four financial institution partners in Nepal, and a lot of work has been initiated with partners related to reporting tools and impact measurement. The principle applied to developing these tools was to make these practical enough to support day-to-day performance management of CleanStart and its partners (going beyond reporting and compliance requirements), and using lean and real-time approaches to data collection, such as digital surveys using smart phones.

CleanStart may select three to four financial service provider and energy enterprise partners each in Uganda and Ethiopia; and up to two financial service provider and/or energy enterprise partners in Tanzania and/or Cambodia.

CleanStart will supplement its core programme team with up to two Monitoring and Evaluation Specialists. The Specialist(s) will work closely with the CleanStart programme team, its grantees, such as financial service providers and energy enterprises, and other UNCDF programmes which have linkages with the energy sector, such as agricultural finance, mobile money and financial inclusion sector diagnostics.

This solicitation is for a Long-Term Agreement (LTA) for one year and renewable up to three years linked to satisfactory performance of the consultant . “LTA” refers to a mutual arrangement whereby the Consultant will provide services as required, over a specific period of time. An LTA specifies the unit price (daily rate), allowing for a framework agreement to be used when the Consultant’s services are needed.

Objectives

The objective of this consultancy is to design and implement an overarching monitoring and evaluation architecture, including M&E tools that are improved over time through field testing. It is important that the various streams of the M&E work comes together under a cohesive architecture and contributes to providing evidence to the key assumptions on which CleanStart is based.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist(s) will manage all aspects including design, data collection and management of field work, as well as the analysis and presentation of credible and robust data in visually compelling formats. Key work areas will include:
 
Develop cohesive M&E architecture with toolkit

It is important that the various parts of streams of the M&E work comes together under a cohesive architecture and contributes to providing evidence to the key assumptions on which CleanStart is based.

Furthermore, there are various global and country-level energy initiatives that CleanStart strives to contribute to, and therefore alignment with the results frameworks of these initiatives such as national energy programmes, Sustainable Energy for All, and the Global Impact Investing Network Impact Reporting is important.

CleanStart annually reports progress and results to its project board, donors and UNCDF Executive Board. In 2015, a mid-term evaluation will be conducted given it is a mid-point of programme implementation.

Assignments will include:

  • Developing the CleanStart M&E architecture with toolkit;
  • updating the CleanStart  results framework;
  • creating linkages with results frameworks of other energy/impact investment initiatives;
  • putting together and updating the monitoring and evaluation strategy and toolkit;
  • contributing to programme evaluations

Develop reporting tool to capture performance data on energy financing

CleanStart also receives quarterly and annual reports from its grantees that it has signed performance-based agreements with. The agreement outlines a set of indicators and milestones to achieve over the course of the agreement. Reporting tools for CleanStart and its partners should be a useful performance management tool.

Assignments will include:

  • Identifying key performance and impact indicators to track with partner financial service providers and energy enterprises;
  • Developing reporting tools that is useful as a performance management tool for CleanStart partners;
  • Providing timely technical advice to users of the tool

Build consumer insights on energy usage and impact on daily lives

The overall objective is to gather reliable data on the impact that clean energy products or loans have on clients’ daily lives, their energy use and financial management. It also seeks to measure how the clean energy products are incorporated into the households’ overall energy consumption as well as the quality of services provided by energy companies. This will involve randomized sampling, recurrent interviews with customers over a one to three year time span, and digital data collection tools using devices such as smart phones.

Assignments will include:

  • Designing and operationalizing impact surveys/evaluations;  managing field work;
  • Analyzing raw data;
  • Writing analytical reports that are of publishable quality and visually compelling;
  • Responding to specific data requests.

Build data collection capacity of partner financial service providers and energy enterprises

Grantees have different levels of data collection capacity. Data collection is particularly challenging for those partners operating in very remote areas with limited access to network connection. Partners often need to aggregate manually written reports sent from their field offices. Furthermore, CleanStart would also like to support its partners in better tracking their energy financing or business portfolio, which is particularly pertinent for partners that have diverse product offerings or have limited data collection systems.

Assignments will include:

  • Assessing data collection capacity of partners;
  • Assisting partners in improving data collection capacity related to energy financing or energy business (e.g. improving MIS, using mobile phone-based systems);
  • Providing timely technical advice to users of M&E tools.

Develop knowledge products

Documenting process learning and making the various M&E tools publicly available so that other energy access initiatives and market actors such as financial service providers and energy enterprises can use and improve them is an important outcome of the overall monitoring and evaluation work.

Furthermore, CleanStart will draw on the expertise of the M&E Specialist(s) when expert M&E advice is required. For example, CleanStart envisions building a global monitoring and evaluation portal that will make the data collected and related analysis/research through the various M&E work available publicly. M&E experts could be asked to provide inputs to the design of this portal.

Assignments will include:

  • Documenting process learnings to improve usability of the M&E tools;
  • Develop M&E toolkits, refined through field testing, that can be used by other energy access programmes and market actors such as energy enterprises and financial service providers;
  • Provide inputs to the design of a global monitoring and evaluation portal for CleanStart and other M&E assignments.

Provide administrative services

Implementing the above five streams of work will at times require administrative arrangements or operational support, such drafting TORs for specific pieces of work; organizing trainings and field visits; translation; digitizing questionnaires on smart phone applications.

 Duration of assignment, duty station and expected places of travel

Contract duration: One year, renewable  up to 3 years.

Duty Station and expected places of travel: Home-based with travel to countries where CleanStart operates in Asia and Africa, including Ethiopia, Tanzania, Uganda, Nepal, Cambodia, Thailand.

The schedule of travel will be negotiated with the consultant according to the requirements of each programme country.

A separate ToR with clear deliverables, budget and timelines will be prepared and agreed prior to each mission within the terms of this ToR.

Competencies

Corporate Competencies:

  • Promotes the vision, mission and strategic goals of UNDP;
  • Demonstrate integrity by modelling the UN's values and ethical standards;
  • Displays cultural, gender, religion, race and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies:

  • Good knowledge and understanding of the UN system, familiarity with UNCDF mandate an asset;
  • Knowledge of issues financial management, financial audit, accountancy;
  • Specific knowledge in the subject area (e.g. microfinance or inclusive finance).

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Masters level qualifications in Economics, Public policy, Statistics or other relevant fields.

Experience:

  • At least 8 years hands-on experience supporting the development of energy and/or microfinance markets that serve low-income people;
  • Experience with implementing one or more of the monitoring and evaluation activities mentioned in the scope of work;
  • Familiar with theory of change for promoting market-based approaches to delivering financial and/or energy solutions to low-income populations;
  • Understands how financial service providers and/or small to medium scale enterprises serving low-income markets operate;
  • Driven by sense of mission to make monitoring and evaluation actionable and useful in business processes, build local capacities, and influence dialogue on building markets for the poor, with a particular passion for consumer-side research;
  • Able to use digitized data collection methods;
  • Relevant work experience in more than one of the CleanStart programme countries.

Languages:

  •  Fluency in English is required; French is a plus.

Evaluation of CVs

Shortlisted applicants will be contacted for an interview. Applications will be rated on both technical and financial submissions, providing a weight of 70% to the technical offer and 30% to the financial offer.

All applications must contain the following information in one word or PDF document (as the system only allows to upload maximum one document) combining the following: