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AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST
RECRUITMENT OF AN INDIVIDUAL NON-FINANCIAL OR BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT SERVICES EXPERT TO SUPPORT THE YOUTH ENTREPRENEURSHIP INVESTMENT
BANKS (YEIB) INITIATIVE
Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development Department (AHHD) Financial Sector Development Department (PIFD)
Avenue Jean-Paul II, 01 BP 1387 Abidjan 01, Côte d'Ivoire
Email : [email protected] and [email protected]; cc: [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected]
1. The African Development Bank (AfDB) is the premier pan-African development institution promoting economic growth and social progress across the continent. The Bank delivers financial and technical support to Regional Member Countries (RMCs) through transformative projects that significantly reduce poverty and bring inclusive and sustainable economic growth. In order to sharply focus the objectives of the Ten-Year Strategy (2013 – 2022) and ensure greater developmental impact, five priorities (High 5s) have been identified for scaling up and accelerate the Bank’s delivery, namely: Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Power Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the quality of life for the people of Africa. In order to accelerate the improvement of the life for the people of Africa, the Bank approved in 2016 the Jobs for Youth in Africa Strategy (JfYA) with the objective to create 25 million jobs and equip 50 million youth with skills for enhanced employability and entrepreneurial success by 2025.
2. In 2019, the youth unemployment rate was over 30% in North Africa, compared to the regional aggregate unemployment rate of 12% and almost 9% in Sub-Saharan Africa, compared with 5.9% on aggregate for the sub-region. However, at closer analysis, underemployment, and employment in the informal economy, are the clear employment challenges facing Africa’s youth.
3. Economically active as workers in the informal economy or as own account workers, informal work affects 95% of young African workers. Africa’s informal sector is dominated by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. (MSMEs), many of which are hindered in their growth by access to affordable finance and quality business development services. Labour intensive by makeup, MSMEs are globally a driving source of employment and inclusive growth. It is estimated that in Africa, the Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) sector accounts for more than 80% of jobs created annually and that MSMEs contribute to 33% of Africa’s GDP.
4. However, almost 60% of MSMEs in Africa cite access to finance as the main bottleneck to their growth and risk to their survival. This is because most traditional financial institutions typically overestimate the risk of lending to MSMEs, they are therefore risk averse when it comes to lending to micro, small and even medium enterprises. This has led to an SME credit gap in Africa estimated at over USD 330 billion (almost 15% of Africa’s GDP) and left 51% of the continent’s 44 million formal MSMEs without the finance necessary they need to grow.
5. With no credit history limited work experience and little or no savings, youth entrepreneurs are even less attractive as borrowers to financial institutions. Youth entrepreneurs are also discouraged from borrowing
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formally. Only 3% of youth in Sub-Saharan Africa borrow for business and only 10% managed to save at a financial institution; they also lack assets to serve as collateral to secure loans from financial institutions, and thus mostly rely on financial support from their family and friends.
6. Considering that most of the new labour market entrants will end up unemployed and discouraged and given the stimulus effect of entrepreneurship to job creation, it is vital that youth are adequately supported as entrepreneurs and provided with the opportunities to become a productive force in African economies – creating their own jobs and for their peers, while fostering economic growth. Harnessed by African economies shifting from being mainly natural resource dependent to being more diversified, service-led, manufacturing intensive, and technology inclined, youth and youth entrepreneurs are strategic to propel Africa onto an advanced growth path.
7. The African Development Bank Group, through its Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development and Financial Sector Development Departments, is therefore seeking the services of an individual non-financial or business development services expert to support the youth entrepreneurship investment banks (YEIB) initiative. The purpose of this assignment is to support AfDB’s regional member countries in developing non-financial services for their soon to be established youth entrepreneurship investment bank (YEIB). The assignment is in two parts: (i) to support the Bank in the design of the YEIB Initiative and (ii) to support the implementation of YEIBs. At a national level, each YEIB will provide financial and non-financial services to youth entrepreneurs. A Regional Centre of Excellence (or
“Centre”) will most likely complement the YEIB model and facilitate its roll-out for regional member countries. It is expected that the Non-Financial Services (NFS) expert will be part of the Centre.
8. The key role of a YEIB at the country level is to be an ecosystem anchor, a convener and coordinator and to bring together all relevant financial and non-financial parties and partners to play their respective roles more effectively in supporting youth entrepreneurs.
9. The Center would oversee the entire initiative across Africa and act as a platform for pan African ecosystem development activities that no single YEIB can do alone. The Center will contribute to building local youth entrepreneurship ecosystems. The ecosystems will be localized by country in the first stage, then could be expanded regionally and globally in the second stage, especially for mentorship, coaching, knowledge, and experience sharing, business partnerships / alliances, information hubs and transaction platforms.
10. The YEIB Centre of Excellence services would include linking entrepreneurs to investors on a pan- African platform accessible globally; development of information hubs and online networking and transacting platforms that link entrepreneurs across the continent; provide policy support to facilitate youth entrepreneurship; and advocate with governments on the business enabling environment reforms needed to catalyze youth entrepreneurship. It would forge pan African international training partnerships with international partners. The Center would also create and support the development of a pan African regional and international mentors network of experienced entrepreneurs.
11. The Centre aims to support national BDS providers in the development and delivery of services to entrepreneurs, such as industry networking events, thought leader speaker series, entrepreneurship training workshops and boot camps with international partners, and technical assistance. The Centre would help in brokering mentoring by experienced entrepreneurs and industry experts, tailored ventures consulting and advisory services (through big consulting firms pro bono services and/or through DFIs grant funded technical assistance). Other programs under the Center could include: a program for facilitating strategic alliances, business partnerships, and supporting regionalization and/or internationalization of promising African startups and a program for facilitating access to banks and VC investors regionally and globally and facilitating access to management talent, lawyers, accountants, and other professional services.
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12. Responsibilities of the non-financial or business development services (NFS) expert will focus on supporting YEIBs to address barriers, other than the availability of capital which hinder the growth of youth-led start-ups and SMEs. Therefore, the NFS export will support in improving the quality and delivery of Business Development Services/non-financial support and the overall entrepreneurship ecosystem of YEIB countries. The NFS expert will provide technical support during the design and operational phases of the YEIB initiative. Specifically, this will include, but will not be limited to:
Design phase:
• Mapping of key actors in the national entrepreneurship ecosystem of YEIB countries, as required, their role and services in the ecosystem, and their relation and linkages with other ecosystem stakeholders; and
• Providing technical guidance during the YEIB Feasibility Study phase, including supporting the Bank and firm recruited to carry out the study;
• Advise national YEIBs on the implementation of sustainable national support structures for youth entrepreneurs;
• Coordinating and leading on developing an innovative non-financial services programming for the YEIBs, including an approach of delivery by each national YEIB, that includes advisory services, training, acceleration programs, information and knowledge sharing for youth-led start-ups and SMEs;
• Forging regional and global partnerships for the Centre of excellence;
• Forging pan regional connections between YEIBs;
• Supporting countries in addressing informality on youth entrepreneurship development, including reforming legal and business environment; and
• Identifying and helping YEIB countries in addressing the mismatch between the supply and demand of entrepreneurial support services in the ecosystem.
Operational phase:
• Supporting YEIBs in developing or leveraging existing local and regional training programs, i.e.
business development services (BDS) geared towards supporting their existing and future clientele of start-ups and existing businesses with the potential to be upgraded and grow;
• Advising YEIBs on leveraging existing resources or on designing new ones to come up with a custom suite of services aligned to youth-led start-up and SME needs and challenges in their market.
• Linking YEIBs to existing services on and/or international providers that could support their clientele, including online platforms training programs, networking solutions, business skills, financial management, tailored business advisory, technologies, marketing, business management, preparation for access to financiers and investors, markets, and related technical support areas, trade missions and fairs, start-up and SME focused events, seminars, and workshops, and business clubs, etc…; all of which should complement the financial and commercial offerings of the YEIB;
• Identifying opportunities for YEIBs to extend their reach to their existing or potential clientele through various delivery options, including new and mobile technology platforms;
• Assisting YEIBs in positioning BDS to generate new business from youth-led start-ups and SMEs, including the costing of such positioning and of various BDS in order for YEIBs to make targeted and cost-effective choices on which NFS to offer;
• Providing technical guidance to YEIBs in how they can reduce the potential risks faced in financing the growth of their clientele through BDS and NFS;
• Facilitating at a national level the interaction between BDS and NFS ecosystem actors and partners to improve the success of YEIBs;
• Offering ecosystem strengthening advisory support to Regional Member Countries (RMC) with YEIBs, recognizing barriers and introducing recommendations for addressing policy, human capital, support and culture issues;
• Identifying synergies, partnerships, and areas of complementary between individual ecosystem components in a YEIB country;
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• Forging regional and global partnerships for the Centre of excellence; and
• Forging pan regional connections between YEIBs.
13. The Human Capital, Youth and Skills Development and Financial Sector Development Departments invite individual consultants to indicate their interest in providing the above-described services. Interested eligible individual consultants shall provide information on their qualifications and experience demonstrating their ability to provide the services (capability statement with references for similar services, experience in comparable assignments, availability of qualified staff, etc.).
14. The eligibility criteria, the establishment of a short list and the selection procedure shall be in conformity with the Bank’s Procurement Policy for Recruitment of Individual Consultants.
15. The Bank is under no obligation to shortlist any individual consultant who expresses interest.
16. Interested individual consultants may obtain further information at the address below during the Bank’s working hours: 08:00 to 17:00 hours (GMT/Abidjan time), Monday to Friday.
17. The recruitment of the consultant will be in two stages. i) Shortlisting/evaluation of candidates based and the below criteria. A shortlist of three (3) to six (6) consultants will be established.
General qualifications and relevance to the assignment 25
Strong expertise and knowledge of non-financial services, including experience working in promoting business development services for youth, start-ups, and SMEs in emerging markets
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Experience working with international finance institutions and donors 5 Excellent communication and presentation skills in English and/or French (Language
Proficiency)
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Experience working on entrepreneurship development/SME development in Africa (Knowledge of the African regional context)
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TOTAL SCORE 100
ii) Consultants having scored over 70 at the shortlisting stage will be invited to take part in a panel interview.
18. The consultant to be recruited should have the following qualifications:
• Master’s degree in economics, entrepreneurship, management and/or MBA;
• A minimum of fifteen (15) years of experience and proven track record in providing tailored and innovative business development services (BDS) or designing programs, with specific experience in Africa and for women and youth-led businesses;
• Strong experience in engaging public and private sector stakeholders in the entrepreneurship sector, including creating private sector linkages for youth entrepreneurship promotion;
• Strong first-hand experience in operating sustainable BDS services for early stage entrepreneurs;
• Proven experience in developing entrepreneurship ecosystems, especially in Africa
• Strong understanding of gender issues, employment, entrepreneurship, trade, access to finance and job creation for and by youth-led businesses;
• Knowledge of innovative ICT tools for effective, tailored, and quality BDS;
• Knowledge of business environments in Africa;
• Excellent analytical, writing, and presentation skills;
• Highly developed communication skills; and
• Fluent in English or French, with a high level of proficiency in the other language
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19. Expressions of interest must be submitted or sent by email to the address mentioned below no later than 15 October 2021 at 05:00 PM (GMT) and specifically mentioning: “Expression of Interest for Non-Financial or Business Development Services Expert”
For the attention of:
Ms. Josephine Ndao, Email: [email protected] Mr. Rachid Ndiaye, Email: [email protected]
Copy to:
Mr. Tapera Jeffrey Muzira, Email: [email protected] Mr. Robert Zegers, Email: [email protected]
Mr. Hazem Elwassimy, E-mail: [email protected]
