Background
Before the January 2010 earthquake, the economic and livelihoods situation in Haiti was weak, unbalanced, vulnerable and unstable across the entire country, rooted in deep-seated and long term causes related to governance, conflicts, cyclical disasters, poverty and inequality. Approximately 77% of the population lives in poverty, while 56% in extreme poverty, unemployment is 35% and at least 70% of the population doesn’t have stable jobs. 90% of all those working in commerce and industry are estimated to be in the informal sector. The informal sector, although resourceful and resilient, in the face of adverse circumstances, does not generally provide high incomes, skill levels or productivity.
Haiti’s construction industry is a domestic, location-specific sector. After a decade-long stagnation during the 90s for a wide-range of issues, from 2004 onwards, the industry registered incremental growth since 2004, primarily due to an increase in political stability and influx of donor funds for infrastructure development. Prior to the earthquake, there were an estimated 300- plus construction contractors in Haiti—concentrated mainly in Port-au-Prince. Ironically, the large-scale destruction of housing and infrastructure now provides new opportunities for the sector to rebuild back better.
Agriculture, the sector from which the largest number of Haitians still depends, employs almost 50% of the working population, but represents only 25% of GDP. Towards the late ‘50s and early ‘60s Haiti covered approximately 90% of its food needs; while since the mid ‘90s this relative self-sufficiency has been reduced whereas imports covered about 45-50% of local demand. Two longstanding problems that both the government and donors will have to deal with are weak/lacking land tenure security and the shortage of credit for agricultural activities. Infrastructure is both inadequate overall and geographically ill-distributed. This can be applied to roads, ports, airports and energy.
Regarding Export Processing Zones EPZs in Haiti, the general thinking has been that creating assembly manufacturing jobs generates income for people, which improves living standards, resulting in human development. Nevertheless, Haiti’s experience shows that it cannot be assumed a priori that employment in EPZs will contribute to sustainable development or improve human development. Haiti will, therefore, have to relate its support for EPZs with a strong and sustained development program aimed at agriculture and the rural hinterland.
Formal, commercial banks still serve only a small fraction of the Haitian population, given that banks currently lend to just 1% of the total population, semi-formal microfinance institutions and money transfer operators, maisons de transfert, provide valuable and more accessible services to a growing number of Haitians. Deposit services are more widespread, given the banking sector’s 1.9 million savings accounts, but are available almost exclusively to the Port-au-Prince area; 82% of the total bank savings portfolio is located in the capital. There are presently 21 MFIs operating in Haiti, and the number continues to grow. It is important that MFIs are able to provide traditional microfinance services so entrepreneurs can build back their businesses and begin generating income. So far housing microfinance is barely nonexistent and the role of MFIs in Haiti may be limited to identifying clients who may be potential beneficiaries of housing assistance, linking them to relief, and providing mechanisms whereby clients can receive services and information on assistance programs: how to access funds, how to use funds, etc.
So far IFIs are designing grant mechanisms for their housing initiatives targeting for low-income families in neighborhoods. However, the IDB and WB are interested designing credit enhancement facilities and guarantees to develop housing financial instruments to attend the Haitian middle-class which comprise civil service officials, professionals and landlords. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is currently working to launch a housing microfinance TA program to help develop the housing microfinance market.
With a restricted cash transfer approach, grant funds are transferred by NGOs to beneficiaries and the use of funding is clearly stipulated. Meanwhile, financial inclusion is being developed, based on the growth of the cellular phone market which is developing money banking with Voila and Trilogy, a cellular phone service provider and UNIBANK.
The institutional capacity was further weakened, with a limited civil service capacity both at national as well as local levels, While NGOs and other forms of donor and private assistance might offer some immediate and needed relief for those without shelter and food, only the state can provide collective protection and create the conditions for self-sustained growth. In this primarily informal economy, where little value added is provided to goods and services, most of the quality ones are mainly imported and there is a clear break in the links between the micro and the small uncompetitive business and potential lead companies, a big opportunity for value chain development can clearly be foresee, especially in those sectors that are showing a growth path.
Finally, the supplier development programme (SDP) in the UNDP context intends to improve the competitiveness of small scale suppliers in supplying their products to lead firms (larger buying companies). UNDP worldwide has a history of over ten years in running SDPs and its implementation in Haiti has already started with more than 3 value chains.
Duties and Responsibilities
UNDP facilitates Global Compact networks in more than 40 developing countries and countries with economies in transition. Further, the Growing Inclusive Markets (GIM) initiative is a UNDP led global multi-stakeholder research and advocacy initiative that seeks to understand, enable and inspire the development of more inclusive business models around the globe that will help to create new opportunities and better lives for many of the world’s poor. The GIM approach seeks to demonstrate how business can significantly contribute to human development by including the poor in the value chain as consumers, producers, business owners or employees (‘inclusive business models’). GIM highlights portraits of successful simultaneous pursuits of revenues and social impact by private actors, from social entrepreneurs to local small and medium-sized enterprises, large domestic companies and multinational corporations, but also state-owned companies and civil society organizations. By doing so, GIM contributes to human development and the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
The selected professionals will carry out specialized short term consultancies, according to the demands and needs of the Organization, and in line with the terms of reference (ToR) for the short mission of consultancy.
Main Activities: The consultant will provide professional services and support concerning the private sector and the Suppliers Development Programm.
The consultant, who will work under the supervision and coordination of the UNDP (Haiti) Private Sector Specialist, shall deliver the products described in the according TORs for each specific mission during the LTA.
The consultant will provide for each mission and TOR and action plan, present a strategy and the logic of the intervention in order to reach the objectives of the specific mission.
Competencies
- Project Management;
- Strategic and analytical capacities as well as coordination;
- Extensive knowledge and experience in Suppliers Development Programme;
- Team work and multilateral collaboration (with Ministries and UNDP);
- Leadership and autonomy, RBM;
- Cultural Awareness;
- Flexibility Innovative approach;
- Excellent communication skills.
Required Skills and Experience
- Masters degree in Law, Political Science, International Relations, Development Studies, Public Administration and Management or relevant social sciences;
- Specialized training on business consulting.
- 7 years of experience of work in the private sector, business management, business consulting, and other related areas;
- Extensive knowledge in value chain methodologies and suppliers development;
- Successful Path in the development and evaluation systems implementation and project management;
- Min. 7 years of experience of work in the private sector, for international organizations;
- Prior experience of work in Haiti and in the Carribean region/Latin America;
- Theoretical and practical Knowledge in methodologies of training of consultants;
- Experience working with multilateral institutions;
- Knowledge and control management tools, data analysis, presentations, spreadsheet and text.
- Fluency in French, English and Spanish, both oral and written is essential.
Interested individual consultants must submit the following documents/information to demonstrate their qualifications:
Proposal:
- Explaining why they are the most suitable for the work;
- Provide a brief methodology on how they will approach and conduct the work;
- Financial proposal;
- P11 at least 3 references.
All envisaged travel costs must be included in the financial proposal. This includes all travel to join duty station/repatriation travel. In general, UNDP should not accept travel costs exceeding those of an economy class ticket. Should the IC wish to travel on a higher class he/she should do so using their own resources.
In the case of unforeseeable travel, payment of travel costs including tickets, lodging and terminal expenses should be agreed upon, between the respective business unit and Individual Consultant, prior to travel and will be reimbursed.
Two stage evaluation procedures will be applied:
- Technical evaluation – 70/100;
- Financial evaluation – 30/100.