UNDP Jobs - 26103- Access to Finance Consultant

Access to Finance Consultant - Women Entrepreneurship Draft Capacity

Location :

Home-based with travel to Johannesburg (Twice)

Type of Contract :

Individual Contract

Starting Date :

31-Oct-2011

Application Deadline :

18-Oct-11 (Midnight New York, USA)

Post Level :

International Consultant

Duration of Initial Contract :

30 Working Days

Languages Required :

English French

Expected Duration of Assignment :

30 Working Days

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence. UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Background

UNDP Africa’s strategic vision places development for pro-poor growth and accountability at the centre of all UNDP-supported activities in the region, given the fact that lack of capacity in these areas remains one of the key challenges faced by Africa today in its efforts to achieve the MDGs. To achieve this goal UNDP has set itself the tasks of: i) strengthening its strategic thinking and advocacy functions in line with the UNDP Strategic Plan and with Africa’s development agenda; ii) creating in-house capacity to translate corporate support goals into capacity development results; and iii) providing support to UN reform and strengthening its partnerships with both UN and external development partners.

The UNDP regional project entitled, “Building African Capacity to Gain Maximum Benefit from Inclusive Globalization and Regional Integration” is in line with the first focus area mentioned above. The specific objectives of the project are to strengthen the capacity of African countries for increased participation in global trade and linking trade policies to poverty reduction, and having trade negotiations outcomes that reflect common African position. The project is an important component of a strategy aimed at making globalization work better for Africa, and congruent with the African Union’s vision of regional integration, high levels of growth and poverty reduction. Under the project, institutional capacities are strengthened in the area of research on trade issues and analytic work to inform trade policy formulation, enhanced outcomes that reflect common African position.

One of the main activities of the project is supporting the engendering of policies for increased participation of women in formal trade. For this purpose, one of the activity results undertaken was conducting a needs assessment for women entrepreneurs and formulating a capacity development plan for regional policy for enhancing the role of women in trade. The workshop was held from 15-17 September 2010 and was mainly consultative in approach with the overall outcome being better participation and contribution of women in all forms of international trade (both formal and informal). The specific outcomes of the workshop were threefold:

Conducting a needs assessment: A needs assessment and consultations with women entrepreneurs from all five RECs that the Regional Trade Project covers (COMESA, EAC, ECCAS, ECOWAS and SADC) were conducted.
Producing a report which captured concrete recommendations by women entrepreneurs on how key areas in which they required capacity development
Providing a platform for exchange of experiences: The workshop was a platform for women entrepreneurs to exchange experiences in their respective sectors.

The workshop identified five critical areas that pose challenges to women engaged in International Trade in Africa. These are:

Access to finance and productive resources
Access to international markets
Reducing the cost of doing business
Organization and advocacy skills with Government and other organizations like the United Nations
Issues related to Entrepreneurship

The capacity Development Plan will focus on the five areas above.

Duties and Responsibilities

The overall purpose of this initiative is to Draft a Capacity Development (CD) and Implementation Plan based on the outcomes of the needs assessment and recommendations in the workshop report (September 15-17, 2010). More specifically, the objective of this assignment is to systematically develop a Capacity Development and Implementation Plans in Access to finance and productive resources as one of the critical areas identified by the women entrepreneurs.

Working closely with RBA’s Regional Trade Project, Gender, Capacity Development Teams and the lead consultant, the incumbent will provide substantive analysis on issues related to access to finance that affect women entrepreneurs in Africa. The discussions at the needs assessment meeting pointed out that even though women play a very important role in business and in the economy in general, there are sidelined in most incidences including inaccessibility of finance in some countries. They volunteer unpaid care and are constantly giving and contribution to society but this labour is invisible and not measured in the economy.

Financial services are crucial in business and hence non access leave women inclined to informal sector where profit margins are very low and there is minimal enterprise growth. Some of the challenges women entrepreneur’s experiences were also enumerated; these include:

Financial Literacy
Lack of financial confidence
Lack of Appropriate products
Awareness of Development Finance
Attitudes of Bank.

While women are better at paying back their loans than men; women encounter many more problems to get loans. Therefore, the purpose of this activity is to analyse factors negatively affecting women and recommend respective solutions. The analysis will feed in to the development of the Capacity Development Plan for women entrepreneurs in Africa.

The incumbent will produce the draft chapter on Access to Finance that will be transformed to a Capacity Development Plan with the other four chapters.

The expected result of this initiative is to ensure the timely and high quality delivery of the following:

Presentation of the annotated outline of the chapter on access to finance after the orientation meeting
Production of first draft of the chapter on access to finance
Presentation of the preliminary findings at the Validation technical meeting
Submission of the final draft of the chapter on access to finance

Competencies

Excellent quantitative and qualitative research, communication (written and verbal), financial economics especially, issues relating to banking and access to finance, including micro finance, gender, international trade and development concepts.

Corporate Competencies

Demonstrates commitment to UNDP’s mission, vision and values (especially the approach that UNDP takes towards, gender, trade and human development)
Practices adherence to corporate rules, regulations and procedures
Displays cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.

Functional Competencies

Good knowledge, understanding, and some experience of international trade, entrepreneurship especially from the perspective of economics of gender (being able to look at the relevant issues from a strong gender lens).
Excellent facilitation, training, and analytical skills are required. Excellent skills for reporting and extracting necessary and relevant information are a must.

Required Skills and Experience

Education:

Master’s degree in financial economics, social sciences, law, business administration, and/or other finance related disciplines.

Experience:

Minimum 5 years of experience in the banking and development finance field, gender and risk analysis
Ability to use computers and office software packages and advance knowledge of spreadsheet and database packages.

Language:

Fluency in written and oral English.