Consultants - Financial Services Mapping, Gender Analysis and Short Term Technical Assistance Pool - DRC

Positions: Consultants – Financial Services Mapping, Gender Analysis and Short Term Technical Assistance Pool

Location: DRC

Consultant: Financial Services Mapping

BACKGROUND

Adam Smith International is a global advisory company that works locally to transform lives by making economies stronger, societies more stable, and governments more effective. We work on behalf of governments, foundations and companies that share our ambition to take on the big challenges facing the world.

The Garamba Alliance Activity (GAA) will work under USAID’s HEARTH (Hearth, Ecosystems, and Agriculture for Resilient, Thriving Societies) portfolio. The Activity will bring together a group of local actors from the private sector, civil society, government, and donors to establish a shared view of development for the region surrounding Garamba National Park. By applying a private-sector approach to interventions across Agriculture, Artisanal Mining, Conservation, Renewable Energy, and Vocational Training, the Activity will counter the incentives of local populations to pursue environmentally damaging behaviors.

Position 1 – Consultant: Financial Services Mapping

ROLE DESCRIPTION

We are seeking a consultant who has a strong network and understanding of financial service providers (FSPs) in the DRC, with an understanding of both supply and demand constraints, and experience in development programme interventions.

Access to capital and financial products is a constraint to development in Haut Uele. This creates a bottleneck for target enterprises in the agricultural and energy sectors. The consortium will build an in-depth understanding of what is available for companies and entrepreneurs in the region. These findings will be built into intervention strategies to spur competition amongst market actors and facilitate access to financial services tailored to the Activity’s target groups.

To understand and address these constraints, the Consultant will map financial service providers and market needs across pre-selected agriculture value chains, energy providers, mining cooperatives, SMEs, micro-businesses and vocational training participants. This study will support the development of, facilitate access to, and promote tailored financial products. Running from June to August 2022, this will address the following questions:

Do financial service providers in the area offer the products needed by value chain actors, energy providers, entrepreneurs and mining cooperatives to expand their businesses?
If they do, what can be done to facilitate access to these products?
If they don’t, which adjustments should be made to existing products to tailor them to the needs of target groups?
Which other financial service providers offer relevant products and how can we incentivize them to invest in Haut Uele in the future?
Which criteria can the we develop, along with financial service providers, to ensure responsible financing mechanisms across all economic activities?

SCOPE OF WORK

For this engagement, the consultant will develop a concept note, workplan, and budget for a two-phased intervention:

Phase 1: Identify financial services needs across targeted value chains, the energy sector, mining cooperatives, SMEs, micro-businesses and vocational training participants; and map current providers and products available to the Activity’s target groups;
Phase 2: Based on this initial assessment, design long-term interventions and/or products tailored to the needs of targeted value chains, sectors and actors.
The total estimated level of effort for this assignment is sixty days (30 days for Phase 1 and 30 days for Phase 2).

Deliverables

The consultant will produce the following deliverables:

A concept paper of maximum 8 pages covering both phases;
A workplan covering both phases;
A budget, ideally with private sector contribution, covering both phases;
A Financial Services Landscape Assessment, including a matrix of providers and available products;
A workshop presenting the main findings to key stakeholders, including the GAA Consortium, relevant market actors, Kibali Goldmines and USAID;
Phase 2 deliverables will include a concept paper, a workplan and a budget for each intervention proposed by the end of Phase 1; the number of interventions to be designed will be determined by the findings of Phase 1.

POSITION 2 – Consultant: Gender Analysis

ROLE DESCRIPTION

We are seeking an experienced gender consultant who has a solid understanding of applying gender and social inclusion principles to market systems development interventions. This will be based upon USAID’s guiding principles, addressing the following limitations:

The differences between women and men and their access to, and control over, resources, education, opportunities, and services.
The influence of gender roles, structural barriers, and norms on the division of time between paid employment, unpaid work, and volunteer activities.
The influence of gender roles, structural barriers, and norms on leadership roles and decision making, with a view to empowering women both in business and communities.
The potential impact of development policies and programs – including the Garamba Alliance Activity – on women and men, encouraging a culture that is sensitive to gender gaps and inadvertent impacts of programming.

The consultant should distil the findings of the gender analysis and work with the team to revise the project’s Theory of Change, working recommendations into interventions. Demonstrated familiarity with our key sectors (Agriculture, Access to Finance, Artisanal Mining, Education, Conservation) is favoured.

SCOPE OF WORK

For this engagement, the consultant will complete:

Phase 1, a gender analysis in Haut Uele province and assessment of USAID DRC gender indicators for programming, through June-August 2022.
Phase 2, incorporation of findings into the Theory of Change and Results Chain, likely through a workshop in September 2022 and inputs into the Activity’s Inception report, Y1 annual report and Y2 workplan.

The total level of effort for this assignment is forty days (35 days for Phase 1 and 5 days for Phase 2).

ASI may set up a third and final phase to this assignment, a gender-oriented review of interventions designed by the end of Y1 (Jan. 2023), based on the findings of the gender analysis. A specific SoW will be developed later.

Deliverables

For the gender analysis, the consultant will produce the following deliverables:

A concept paper of maximum 8 pages;
A workplan;
A budget, ideally with a contribution from Kibali Goldmines;
A 30 page report to be delivered to USAID;
A debrief presentation to GAA Consortium members, Kibali Goldmines and USAID. For the second phase, the consultant will:
Participate in the workshop organized by GAA in August or September, to revisit the Activity’s ToC and results chains;
Provide inputs on the revised ToC and results chains, as well as the Activity’s Y1 annual report and Y2 workplan.

POSITION 3 – Call for Experts – Short Term Technical Assistance Pool

Adam Smith International is building a pool of technical consultants across diverse technical areas and invites applications from relevant candidates. The programme will require significant breadth of expertise across the following areas;

Access to Finance: Experience in Access to Finance interventions including the development of MSE-friendly finance products, policies, and strategies, engaging and liaising with financial service providers, capacity building for enterprise start-up and growth, liaising with trade associations/clusters, development, and implementation of (VSLAs) in vulnerable communities.
Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining (ASM): Understanding artisanal and small-scale gold mining and development, conducting assessments to strengthen capacity and expand market opportunities for legal, sustainable and responsible ASM. Comprehension of gender equality in the implementation of artisanal mining development projects.
Biodiversity & Conservation: Experience in improvement, management, and conservation of biodiverse ecosystems and the status of biodiversity. Excellent knowledge of habitat and land management processes required to increase sustainable development and biodiversity conversation.
Basic Education: Expertise and knowledge of literacy, numeracy and early grade learning, analysis of the education sector to identify gaps and opportunities and propose solutions to improve education outcomes, ability to develop strong working relations with relevant actors and key decision-makers in the education sector.
Health: Skills in assessing health conditions within an environment or community and recommending solutions and new processes to improve health outcomes. Experience with community-based and private-sector led health approaches in rural/remote environments.
Renewable Energies: In-depth knowledge and experience of the renewable energy sector (sources and products); experience with private-sector led interventions around clean cooking and electrification or rural communities, public infrastructure and productive use.
Vocational Training: Experience in identifying labor market demand, opportunities, and skills gaps, designing vocational training strategies and material, and delivering trainings of trainers in: agriculture production, agribusiness, micro-business start-up and management, entrepreneurship, marketing, financial inclusion.

We are inviting applications from consultants working across the above technical areas. Applications will be assessed, contacted, and be issued scopes of work on a rolling basis according to programme needs. Successful candidates will be kept on a roster and contacted periodically throughout the five-year programme.

HOW TO APPLY

Please send your CV and covering letter to recruitment.africa@adamsmithinternational.com. Please follow the following format when addressing you email:

“USAID GAA_FirstNameLastName_Technical Area”