[Offre en anglais] SPARK lance un appel à consultation : Need assessment of the Tunisian Financial Institutions toward the products and serviced delivered to entrepreneurs عودة إلى الفرص

Need assessment of the Tunisian Financial Institutions toward the products

and serviced delivered to entrepreneurs

(Local Assignment)

Location: Kef and Kairouan (Tunisia)

Application Deadline: 28th May, 2017

Type of Contract: Consultancy (Local assignment)

Expected Duration of Assignment: 4 weeks

About Spark

SPARK develops higher education and entrepreneurship to empower young, ambitious people to lead their conflict affected societies into prosperity.

SPARK is determined to increase the number of sustainable jobs and economic prospects for youth in post-conflict regions through the improvement of higher education and the development of the local private sector.

Background

SPARK is currently implementing a three-year programme called LEAD: Local Employment for Africa Development. The program supports SME’s through tailored coaching, training and access to finance and markets. As part of its intervention, Spark will provide capacity building and support to financial and microfinance institutions (FMI) to help improve its services to young entrepreneurs.  By providing targeted assistance to FMI’s, young entrepreneurs will be better able to grow their business and create jobs for youth.

Duties and Responsibilities

Under the supervision of the LEAD Tunisia Program Manager, the consultant is expected to carry out a needs assessment and produce a training plan to improve the capacity of local finance institutions to better serve local SME’s and entrepreneurs.

The consultant will be called to:

• Conducting interviews and on-site visits in order to assess the capacity of the MFI
• Conducting background research and analysis of key documents, strategic plans and guidelines to have a complete need assessment related to the work of FMI
• Development of a training plan that addresses the capacity building needs of the MFI.

The needs assessment and training plan will include:

• Identification of current services and products offered to SME’s and entrepreneurs
• Identification of technical and operational obstacles of FMI’s in providing access to finance and other such products to clients.
• Identification of skills and knowledge that need to be developed/strengthened in order to ensure the effective functioning of its operation.

Summary of key functions:

Providing advice to Spark project team or/and FMI on how to use findings of the needs assessment in order to enhance the capacity of FMI.

Expected results/Outputs/ Deliverables

A complete and approved needs assessment outlining:

1. A) Skills and services required by FMI to carry out their tasks
2. B) Skills and knowledge that the FMI needs to develop in order to improve the quality of their services (with a focus on services to SME’s and in particular women)
3. C) A training plan to enhance the FMI’s capacity and lead the training if appropriate.
4. D) An approved report containing concise and practical recommendations on the development and improvement of the FMI and an action plan on how to effectively implement the findings of the assessment presented in a half day workshop.

NB: – All documents should be delivered in English

Person qualifications

The Consultant will need an extensive background and experience in finance and banking, alongside appropriate knowledge of the local financial infrastructure and institutions.

Additionally, the Consultant needs to be fully independent from local financial institutions to ensure an objective assessment. Understanding and experience with both Islamic Banking and conventional banking practices is also needed.