Background

UN Capital Development Fund is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s least developed countries. It creates new opportunities for poor people and their communities by increasing access to microfinance and investment capital.  UNCDF focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict or crisis. It provides seed capital – grants and loans – and technical support to help microfinance institutions reach more poor households and small businesses, and local governments finance the capital investments – water systems, feeder roads, schools, irrigation schemes – that will improve poor peoples’ lives.

 UNCDF, through its Financial Inclusion Practice Area, seeks to develop a set of strategic initiatives or programmes of work that more powerfully connects the agenda of financial inclusion and inclusive markets to deepening women’s economic empowerment. UNCDF seeks to build upon its significant experience in the area of financial inclusion and work with women clients and entrepreneurs and to harness UNCDF’s programmes and partnerships with stakeholders for greater and accelerated impact for women’s economic empowerment.

 Against this background, UNCDF requires the assistance of a consultancy who is experienced in the research,  conceptualization and design of projects and interventions related to women economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and inclusive business thinking and practices across Africa and Asia to assist with the development of women-centric interventions across UNCDF’s existing and new programmes.

Duties and Responsibilities

Assist in the development of a practice-wide approach to women’s economic empowerment through financial inclusion.  The practice-wide approach should enable any UNCDF programme within the financial inclusion practice area to adopt and incorporate interventions that specifically enhance women’s economic empowerment.  It may also include the development of a distinctive, women-focused initiative that would enable UNCDF to test hypotheses regarding links between women’s financial inclusion and poverty reduction, economic growth and jobs creation, or other development objectives.

Refine the frameworks for women's economic empowerment based existing UNCDF programmes and approaches for wider application and adaptation across all programmes in the financial inclusion practice area.

Identify and develop an approach/approaches to mainstream gender and women’s economic empowerment into existing portfolio and pipeline initiatives.

Contribute to design of distinctive, women-focused initiative to test hypotheses related to women’s financial inclusion and links to broader development outcomes.

 Develop an “enabler-strategy” to support the practice as a whole and its constituent parts to adopt and retrofit activities for women’s economic empowerment, including a creation of a dedicated knowledge and facilitation hub and relevant communication strategy:

  • Lead research and collaborate on the production and communication of state-of-the-art knowledge products on women’s economic empowerment and financial inclusion;
  • Support country, regional, and global projects to design and resource programmes and initiatives on women’s economic empowerment;
  • Develop and maintain a ‘Community-of-Practice’ on women’s economic empowerment, which has the capacity and credibility to champion and engage more actively in responding to the economic empowerment of women through information, peer-to-peer shared learning platforms and opportunities, development of ‘how-to’ toolkits etc.;
  • Connect UNCDF to other networks and constituencies that can enhance and scale up the impact of UNCDF’s contribution;
  • Develop and implement a communications strategy related to inclusive finance for women for internal and external audiences, in conjunction with relevant corporate and practice area communication team members.

Translate the “enabler-strategy plus” into a $10m proposal that can be resourced through external funders, and which leads to $50m leverage in actual programming on women’s economic empowerment through country programmes, regional/global thematic initiatives, and/or women-focused initiative.

Develop concept notes, programme documents, and other supporting material that follow from design processes above.

Research potential funders and develop fundraising strategy and assist with implementation of strategy.

Conceptualize and organize a high-profile event that bring a critical mass of market leaders and thinkers to spearhead the efforts to advance women’s economic empowerment (as needed).

Manage the conversation process to generate ideas, buy-in, and support/resources from relevant partners and stakeholders.

If decision is made to hold such an event, formulate clear objectives and establish an agenda for the event, create a list of invitees, and work with the UNCDF team to organize and facilitate the event.

 The consultant will report to the Policy Advisor, Financial Inclusion, and work closely with other members of the FIPA team.

Competencies

  • Broad understanding on policies and contexts around financial inclusion and women’s economic empowerment in developing countries;
  • Proven success in developing high value project proposals for financial inclusion-related initiatives;
  • Fully proficient computer skills and use of relevant software and other applications.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

  • Master’s degree in economics, finance, international development, or related field.

Experience:

  • A minimum of six years of experience in financial sector development, financial inclusion, women’s economic development;
  • Experience with designing global or regional-level initiatives on financial inclusion/enterprise development/women’s economic empowerment;
  • Experience with conceptualizing and organizing high level events at a global or regional level;
  • Prior knowledge and experience of working with UNCDF desirable;
  • Experience in developing and implementing strategies and initiatives that support inclusive finance and/or advancing women’s economic empowerment at a global/regional level;
  • Experience in building and managing relationships with a broad range of stakeholders, from high level policymakers to private sector actors and development agencies;
  • Experience in conducting and overseeing research related to financial inclusion, economic empowerment of women, and other issues pertaining to the millennium development goals (MDGs) and sustainable development goals (SDGs).

Language:

  • Fluent in English.

Evaluation of CVs

Shortlisted applicants may 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: