Rural Finance Specialist

Rolling Plans Pvt. Ltd (RPPL) announces the vacancy for Rural Enterprises and Remittance Project (RERP) . SAMRIDDHI is a seven-year project funded by International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and executed by the Ministry of Industry (MOI). Government of Nepal (GON) that aims at providing sustainable sources of income to poor households, migrant families and returnees in the Eastern and Central Regions of Nepal, by supporting the creation and expansion of family, micro, small and medium rural enterprises, both in the farming and off farming sectors. The goal of the project is reducing poverty and achieving sustainable peace through employment-focused, equitable and inclusive economic development.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:

Application should include a cover letter, updated Bio-data and self-verified copies of necessary documents that qualify the CV. The application through email and/or by post should mention the job position and vacancy code in the subject line or in the envelope respectively. 

Fill the Application Form online from the link: www.rollingplans.com.np/samriddhi

The TOR may be revised at the time of employment agreement.

The organization reserves the right to reject any/all applications without assigning any reason whatsoever. Canvassing at any stage of the process shall lead to automatic disqualification.

DEADLINE:

The application needs to be received latest by 17:00Hrs, October 30, 2016 (Kartik 14, 2073) 

Rural Finance Specialist

Position’s Key Features

Job Title: Rural Finance Specialist

Duty Station: PMO, Itahari, Sunsari with frequent travel to Kathmandu and project districts (about 50% of the time) 

Mode of Contract: Annual, with six-month’ probation period, and extendable up to the Project period based on satisfactory performance

Report to: Project Manager 

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Rural Enterprises and Remittances (RER) - SAMRIDDHI is a seven years’ project signed between the Government of Nepal (GON) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) on 10 December 2015 covering 16 hills and Terai districts. It aims at providing sustainable sources of income to poor households, migrant families and returnees in the Eastern and Central Regions of Nepal, by supporting the creation and expansion of family, micro, small and medium rural enterprises, both in the farming and off-farming sectors. Ministry of Industry (MOI) is the Executing Agency. Agro Enterprise Center (AEC) under Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI), Helvetas Nepal, selected financial institutions and the business development service providers extending services to the rural areas are the key implanting partners. The Project comprises three inter-linked components encompassing the full set of interventions required to support RMSEs’ profitable and sustainable growth:

• Component 1: Promotion of RMSEs aims at (i) strengthening micro and small entrepreneurs, migrants and their families with sustainable access to adapted Business Development Services (BDS), i.e. non-financial services in support to enterprise creation and/or expansion; and (ii) vocational training and apprenticeship to poor households to build their skills and to secure gainful wage employment in RMSEs. Activities will be driven by an assessment of markets, business opportunities and available services and by an inventory and classification of existing RMSEs through a validation process.
• Component 2: Productive Investment builds on results of component 1 and aims at (i) facilitating RMSEs/migrants/remittance recipient households’ access to financial services at an affordable cost by sustainable financial institutions; and (ii) mobilizing migrants’ resources and skills for creating assets and promoting profitable rural enterprises. It will develop innovative financial instruments designed to offset major constraints faced by RMSEs in accessing investment loans at an affordable cost and to stimulate migrants’ savings and investment in profitable business development.
• Component 3: Institutional Support and Project Management aims at promoting a favorable policy and institutional environment supporting the development of RMSEs at a national scale and the contribution of migration to sustainable development.

Implementation Arrangements

The MOI is overall responsible for coordination and oversight. A Project Management Office(PMO), located at Itahari is responsible for day-to-day implementation of project activities with support from two Corridor Teams providing technical and management support to Enterprise Service Centers (ESCs) and migration-related activities at the district level. Technical partners - Helvetas Nepal and South Asia will support to implement of vocational training and knowledge management aspects. Besides, selected financial institutions and business development service providers’ are expected to support the implementation. A Project Steering Committee headed by MOI Secretary at the national level will provide oversight and guidance.

Expected Results

The development objective of the Project is that viable RMSEs, in both farming and off-farming sectors, provide sustainable sources of income to poor households, migrant families and returnees. Main indicators are: (i) 60,000 RER supported rural entrepreneurs expand their existing business or create a new one; (ii) 30,000 rural youth access job placement services; (iii) 30,000 RER-supported enterprises are still in business after 3 years, of which 33% owned by women/30% owned by migrant returnees; and (iv) 21,000 RER supported vocational trainees and apprentices, of which 33% of women, are in gainful employment over at least 6 months

Scope of Assignment

Scope of assignment of the Rural Finance Specialist has two folds: firstly, building the capacity of existing, potential rural non-bank financial institutions to deliver need-based adequate credit in a timely manner to the micro and small entrepreneurs including migrants and their families, and secondly, linking these institutions with the national financial institutions to transform them into the financial intermediaries in close coordination and cooperation with the Financial Inclusion Specialist. The RFS assesses the needs of rural non-bank financial institutions, their office bearers and members including migrants and their family members, designs and implements training/capacity development modules and transforms them into a financial intermediary between the rural enterprises and the formal financial institutions. The RFS is a member of the Technical Team and works closely works closely with the other Technical Specialists. 

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES AND DUTIES

Specific duties and  responsibilitis of the RSF include, but not limited to, the following:

Capacity building 

• Prepare inventory of all non-bank financial institutions (cooperatives) present in the area; screen them based on available secondary information, grade them and indentify prospective institutions for partnership; 
• Call for expression of interest for cooperatives which are providing credits to the targeted project beneficiaries; identify interested cooperatives for partnership with the Project;
• Carry out due diligent exercise, preferably using UNCDF-developed Assessment Tool, of the identified prospective non-bank financial institutions including their apex organization, where feasible, to arrive at a provisional list of potential institutions for partnership; 
• Rank/grade the cooperatives based on due diligent exercise, prepare sepearate capacity development plan for each category of institutions based on due diligent exercise including their apex organization;provide training based on the capacity development plan;
• Design training modules for each group of potential institutions covering aspects such as governance, financial sustainability, product/services and pricing, operations, finance and accounting, marketing, activities’ environment, remittances, and ICT and computer literacy etc;
• Carry out periodic performance survey of the project-supported rural non-bank financial institutions and assess their performance;

Management

• Ensure that each non-bank financial institutions have put in place the operational policies/guidelines such as lending policy, bookkeeping and accounting manuals, administrative policy and other relevant operational documents;   
• Guide the non-bank financial institutions in timely organization of Annual General Assembly, election of the Executive Committee, Loan Committee and other Committees as required;
• Ensure that a sound internal control system is in place, records relating to savings mobilization, payments of remittances, borrowings from external sources and lending information/reports are presented to various committees maintaining transparency of the financial transactions;
• Support the non-bank financial institutions to get audited their books of accounts in a timely manner and audit reports including periodic progress reports with portfolio statement and ageing balance for loan extended to beneficiaries are produced and submitted to the relevant agencies/committees as required;
• Guide the non-bank financial institutions to design products and services for the expansion of the enterprises owned and operated by their members; also help them in designing specific product and services to ensure inclusion of migrants, their family members as well as very poor households including women through a loan buy-back arrangement;  
• Assist the non-bank financial institutions to classify the enterprises owned and operated by their members including migrant households; and assess their credit needs; 
• Ensure that the non-bank financial institutions are financially viable and are capable enough to continue services to their members even after the support from the Project is phased-out;

Planning, Monitoring and Reporting

• Extend support to the non-bank financial institutions to prepare their annual plans, periodic business plans, loan proposals and performance-based matching grant (PBMGs) to their members entrepreneurs; and ensure that these are forwarded to the Project in a timely manner;
• Work closely with the Financial Inclusion Specialist and the Financial Institutions to develop performance indicators/criteria for the non-bank financial institutions to access credit line from the FIs; 
• Support the non-bank financial institutions to self-assess their performance against the set indicators/ criteria and guide them to develop and implement measures to improve their performance;
• Review the performance of the non-bank financial institutions periodically, track their movements into different grades/ranks and devise measures to help the lower grade institutions to a higher grade; 
• Together with PME Specialist, setup a monitoring mechanism that allows measuring the extent of financial support services provided under the Project and also the extent of the impact on financial inclusion as the result of the Project interventions; prepare periodic progress  reports on financial support services provided to rural enterprises by the non-bank financial institutions  

Others

• Based on the Baseline Studies, Corridor Mapping Excercises and Value Chain Studies identify the critical constaints or bottlenecks hindering the growth of the rural enterprises; devise innovative financing products and services for rural enterprises and business startups;
• Closely working with the Business Development Specialist, ensure that non-financial support are extended to the enterprises supported by the non-bank financial institutions; 
• Support the KM Specialist to capture, document, distil and disseminate lessons learned through implementation and prepare appropriate knowledge products to share with the stakeholders; 
• Support the non-bank financial institutions to identify the financial needs of their members for viable rural micro and small enterprises; educate them in the ways and methods of measuring the efficiency of investment (preparing simple cash flow statements and doing cost benefit analysis) of these enterprises; 
• Assess training needs of the Corridor Level and ESC staff members in relation to rural and micro finance, financial inclusion; design training modules and conduct trainings;
• Any other tasks as assigned by the Project Manager

QUALIFICATION, EXPERIENCE AND COMPETENCIES

• Bachelors’ or higher degree in Development Finance, Deveopment Economics, Business Studies or any other social sciences. 
• Ten years’ of professional experiences from rural banking sector with at least five years’ of experiences in working with cooperatives/financial intermediaries and micro/small enterprises 
• A clear understanding of group approach of development, group lending and tranforming the groups into a grassroots level financial intermediay institutions such as cooperatives
• Ability to design training modules for micro/small enterpreneurs, groups members and the office beearers of cooperatives in the areas of leadership, management, accounting and book-keeping etc 
• Ability to prepare business plan of the grassroots non-banking financial institutions and micro enterprises
• A good understanding of rural/microfinance models into operation in Nepal
• Proven track record of successful working with multi-stakeholder networks 
• Willing to undertake field visits and provide on-the-spot guidance to field level staff
• Fluency in spoken and written – both in Nepali and English languages
• Good working knowledge of MS Office softwares 

Desirable

• A good understanding and knowledge of accounting and financial analysis softwares for rural grassroots organizations
• Ability to analyse and evaluate business schemes/proposals of micro and small enterprises 
• Understanding of the IFAD system and procedures

Salary and Benefits

• The salary will be paid for only twelve (12) months and is negotiable within the range between NPR. 120,000 to NPR 145,000 as decided by the Project Manager. 
• Tax on the salary will be applicable as per the prevailing GON rules and regulation. 
• Travel and the Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) will be as per the prevailing GON rule as applied for the gazetted class II officer while traveling out of the work station for official purpose. 

Other Entitlements

• Leave: The Specialist will be provided with 21 days of home leave and 6 days of casual leave annually, which will not be carried over to the next year. S/he will also be provided 12 days of sick leave per year, which if not consumed, will be carried over to the next year. The unspent sick leave will be compensated as per the existing salary scale at the time of termination of the contract or closing of the Project. In addition, s/he will also be provided with Mourning Leave – 15 days, Maternity Leave -2 months for women (15 days for men, for maternity care leave) and all public holidays.
• Insurance: The Specialist has to insure his/her life including accidental insurance. The Project will reimburse 50 % of the monthly premium for the period working with the Project, not exceeding Rs. 300 per month, upon submission of copy of insurance policy and receipts.

Performance Assessment

The performance assessment of the Admin/Finance Officer will be based on the quality and timely completion of the tasks assigned and contributions to the Project outputs and outcomes. Details on the indicators for performance assessment will be negotiated and agreed upon on a later stage once s/he signs contract with the Project. The Project reserves the right to terminate the contract if the performance of the MS is assessed as unsatisfactory.

These Terms of Reference are subject to revision/update annually per requirement of the Project based on planning trajectory, modification in project design, or as recommended by Joint Reviews/Supervision Missions and lessons learned during the course of implementation.