Request for Proposal (RFP) for Hiring Service Provider for Financial Education for Youths and SACCO Capacity Building in Sidama Region

BACKGROUND

Financial education is a fundamental tool in reducing the challenge through enhancing youths' and MSMEs’ level of financial literacy. It increases the access and utilization of financial services, which allows enterprises to innovate and exploit their capacity. It also improves MSMEs’ competency and enables them to survive in an increasingly turbulent environment. As financial education for entrepreneurs spreads throughout MSMEs, it can create a self‐reinforcing mechanism.

On the other hand, financial institutions need to come out of the vicious circle. They need to create awareness among MSMEs the new joining labor force about the various types of financial products and available services. This would help FIs to broaden their customer bases and mobilize more resources. Likely, MSMEs and particularly youths ease the intention of feeling precarious unemployment and financial insecurity.

Through BRIDGE's engagement for a year and a half in the financial market, it was found out that the unemployed young men and women lack awareness about the various financial service offerings that would enable them to access credit to realize their vision. Hence, this intervention has been implemented in Addis Ababa, Oromia, and Amhara regions which resulted in the training of more than 15,000 youths leading to more than 7000 youths accessing credit so far. The training encompasses mid sets, basic entrepreneurship, financial institutions awareness, and product offerings as well as credit.

The financial education will be provided using different delivery channels ranging from financial literacy campaigns to more structured seminars and workshops. BRIDGEs will be engaged in supporting the intervention by creating a working platform, which will help the main actors to pay their own part in closer coordination.

The Financial Education interventions mainly target unemployed youths and MSMEs in Somali Region. These target groups can easily reach and communicate through the concerned public administration. In general, the initiative will be operational in partnership with the Region Job Creation and Enterprise Development Bureau, TVETs, Shebele bank, SACCOs, other MFIs, and the consultants. For the awareness creation program, it was envisaged to reach 5000 unemployed youth of which at least 2,000 will be accessing credit from various financial institutions.

BRIDGES PROGRAMME

 First Consult (FC) is contracted to provide management and technical support services to Mastercard Foundation under the BRIDGES program to support the creation of close to 600,000 youth jobs (80% women) and 15,000 MSMEs, with 300,000 unemployed youth trained through supporting IP job creation initiative and market linkage between IPs and MSMEs.

 The BRIDGES Programme will address two fundamental, immediate, and complementary challenges to unlock the potential for job creation within IPs and their surrounding ecosystem. 

• Making the industrial workforce markets work, through the Enterprise Partners Programme, First Consult has successfully piloted in a few industrial parks and is now ripe for scale-up.
• Making the IP business linkages (MSME) markets work to enhance domestic manufacturing value-added (MVA) for every given dollar of export. This will be done by substituting the currently-heavy import-dependent operations – itself a constraint on the factories - via local suppliers (MSMEs) in a number of ways.

The Government of Ethiopia recognizes the critical role played by Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in creating job opportunities especially for young people and women, as well as for boosting national income and wealth which is important in igniting industrial transformation and private sector development. This is also well articulated in the Growth and Transformation Plan which prioritizes and identifies the development of micro and small businesses as catalysts for promoting industrial development. However, issues such as A2F, premises, market, and linkage issues remain a challenge. To address the aforementioned, A2F issue, the BRIDGES Programme partners with many Financial Institutions (FIs) to ensure that FIs received the necessary Technical Assistance that will enable the FIs to cater to the wider group of MSMEs that are youth-focused.

OBJECTIVE        

The objective of this assignment is to provide financial awareness training to more than 5000 unemployed youths and MSMEs in the Somali region and enable a minimum of 2,000 of them to access credit from financial institutions through strong follow-ups, supervision, and mentorship.

SPECIFIC TASKS

The firm will be responsible:

• Coordinate with relevant stakeholders to facilitate the signing of this MOU on behalf of BRIDGES
• Coordinate with relevant financial institutions, Somali Region Job Creation and Enterprise Development Bureau, and TVETs and identify a potential list of trainees;
• Provide one-day financial awareness training to 5,000 unemployed youths and MSMEs in the region and city administration
• Enroll the trainees in the developed format and report to the program
• Follow-up, supervise, and provide proper guidance to trainees to access credit from financial institutions. Access to finance is expected to be created for 2,000 youth on a success fee basis
• Link and support MSEs with a financial institution
• Provide capacity building supports to relevant stakeholders
• Any other tasks to be determined

 DELIVERABLES

The following reports will be required as deliverables:

1. Develop modules on mindsets, entrepreneurship, and financial literacy
2. Coordinate with relevant stakeholders in targeting, selecting, and providing training to the youth
3. Monitor the training delivery and report in a timely manner
4. Regularly report the number of trainees and the number of trainees accessing credit to the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) and the Access to Finance team at First Consult, BRIDGES Program;
5. Organize workshops for the relevant stakeholders as per the BRIDGES request and work plan
6. Submit the Final assessment report to the Access to Finance team, which illustrates the overall performance, challenges encountered, and way forward.

The assignment will take 12 months, with a possibility of extension, starting from December 2022. Performance-based payment will be applied.

Job Requirements

Applicant Firm must have qualified trainers who have experience in managing such training programs, delivering training, and a good understanding of the regional stakeholders such as financial institutions, Job creation agencies, TVET, etc that are part of the youth eco-system.

• Experience working in a multi-stakeholder environment delivering similar assignments;
• Prior experience implementing coordination assignments;
• Strong track record of project management and reporting;
• Demonstrated ability to network with various stakeholders;
• Good understanding of MSMEs development/ sector and related work experience;
• Excellent analytical, technical and conceptual knowledge about management and grasp of business management principles and practices;
• Strong verbal and written communication skills in the Somali language are preferable
• Experience related to youth job creation and connection to financial institutions, and higher education institutes including TVET is an asset.

WORKING ARRANGEMENT

The BRIDGES Access to Finance team will assign the Intervention Manager to assist the training delivery process and for any information. The Intervention manager and Monitoring, Evaluation, Research, and Learning (MERL) team will be involved throughout the process of the engagement. 

How to Apply

In response to this TOR, qualified companies should submit both technical (maximum 5 pages, CVs could be annexed) and financial proposals (Maximum 2 pages) in the following structure:

Technical Proposal

• Relevant Experience of the experts
• Description of Technical Approach, Methodology, and Work Plan for Performing the Assignment
• Team Composition, Assignment, and Key Experts CVs

 Financial Proposal

The firm should submit the total budget in the proposal with a detailed breakdown including applicable government taxes. All costs should be stated in ETB. The financial proposal must include the fixed payments for providing the training of 5,000 youth (on average it will have 40 sessions assuming that there is 50 youth per session) and success fee rates for each loan file or membership to MFIs or SACCOs (minimum 2,000 youth).

Clarification/Contact person

For any clarification, please contact Getachew Mekonnin at [email protected] no later than 5 PM on November 11, 2022.