TERMS OF REFERENCE (ToR) for BDS

Supporting Business Development Services (BDS) under

“Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Development Project”

TERMS OF REFERENCE (ToR)

1. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

Introduction

Lutheran World Relief (LWR) is a U.S.-based 501(c)3 organization founded in 1945 with a mission to end poverty, injustice, and human suffering. LWR focuses its work on humanitarian assistance and long-term development, laying a foundation for resilience, sustainable adaptation to climate change, and the strengthening of value chains. Lutheran World Relief combined with IMA World Health in 2020 to create Corus International.

Corus International leads an ensemble of social impact organizations working together in the world’s most fragile settings to deliver holistic and lasting solutions needed to overcome the interconnected challenges of poverty, health care access and climate change. Corus combines over 150 years of experience of our non-profit and for-profit subsidiary organizations – LWR, IMA, CGA Technologies, Ground Up Investing, and LWR Farmers Market. Together, the organizations take a systematic approach to grow rural economies, eliminate extreme poverty, ensure access to quality healthcare, and respond to urgent humanitarian needs in fragile settings.

The ‘Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Development Project’ is designed to improve economic competitiveness of disaster affected, youth and women and establish micro enterprises through building technical capacities on on-farm and off-farm skill/trades and support. The project aims to increase unemployed, interested, committed and dedicated youth’s and women’s access to skill development opportunities, economic resources, financial services, business network and market linkage covering approx. 1,200 youths in Saptari, Gorkha, Nawalparasi (West), Bardiya and Kailali, which is being implemented by Koshi Victim’s Society (KVS), SAHAMATI, Dalit Feminist Upliftment Organization (DAFUO) and National Environment and Equity Development Society (NEEDS) Nepal. 

Since, youth unemployment is one of the biggest economic issues in Nepal where more than 1,500 youth migrate abroad daily in search of employment. Nepal is one of the countries in the world that has large number of youth who are not in employment, education and training. Nepal ranks 69th of 77 countries in terms of labor productivity (GDP per labor employed), which is the lowest in all of Asia. Another issue is the disparity in the participation of women compared to men in the economy. Most of the employment in Nepal are created in informal sectors where they lack terms for decent employment and employers tend to pay lesser than that they are required to pay as per the labor law. 

As one of the major bottlenecks for skilled youth to initiate and expand their business is their lack of access to financial services, lower financial literacy among the youths, limited ability to identify appropriate types of enterprises, limited connection among entrepreneurs’ network, limited services of different agencies such as banks, cottage and small industry offices, municipalities, suppliers, vendors and marketeers in rural areas. Moreover, entrepreneurs lack technical skills in off-farm and on-farm enterprises and marketing their skills as demanded in labor markets and start-up their own enterprises. It has been realized that there are so many factors that contribute to unemployment and the youths abandoning business. Unrealistic expectations, lack of family cooperation, lack of credit worthiness, lack of mortgage/collateral, lack of skills for enterprise, lack of information and linkages are some of the factors that make it difficult for youths to think of starting new business. Those who overcome these factors and enter into the market are beaten by market imperfections, unhealthy competition, supply chain disruption, economic crisis etc. Therefore, it has been realized that for developing an entrepreneur it is essential to develop entrepreneurial attitudes that help them to understand the basic principles of entrepreneurship and markets, have technical knowledge on financial management and skills to operationalize the enterprises with profits. Hence, project emphasized to follow three major strategies to follow-

1. Improve youth’s and women’s knowledge and skills in on-farm and off-farm enterprises/trades and support in establishing micro enterprises. 
2. Improve youth and women’s access to markets.  
3. Improve youth and women’s access to finance. 

In particular, the Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Project with disaster resilient component is being implemented at Saptakoshi Municipality and Kanchanrup Municipality of Saptari District by KVS and Pratappur Rural Municipality and Susta Rural Municipality of Nawalparasi West District and Palungtar Municipality and Shahid Lakhan Rural Municipality of Gorkha District by SAHAMATI. Likewise, ‘Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Development Project’ is being implemented at Godawori Municipality and Chure Rural Municipality of Kailali District by NEEDS Nepal and Madhuwan Municipality and Gulariya Municipality of Bardiya District by DAFUO.

In order to support those entrepreneurs/participants involved in the projects with Business Development Services (BDS) for making them profitable entrepreneurship (business) and employable in the project working palikas and districts, LWR  is calling for the proposals of consultancy services from interested firms/companies for providing necessary business development services to the new youth and women entrepreneurs supported by the projects.  

2. Purpose of the Business Development Service

The firms/company should support entrepreneurs in enterprise assessment and provide necessary recommendation for start-up and upgrading their business, support in preparation of marketing and business promotion strategy, support in access to finance and provide on-site and off-site coaching, mentoring and follow-up support, which enable to boost entrepreneurs’ capacity on business management. The specific objectives of this consultancy service are as follows:

Conduct enterprise assessment and provide necessary recommendations for upgrading/strengthening/start-up of their business: The consultancy would assess financial performance, financial management, Human Resources, reputation and provide necessary recommendation for business startup and upgradation/strengthening.

• Provide support to prepare marketing and business promotion strategy: The consultancy would support and explore business segmentation, targeting, positioning, promotional tactics/sales promotion, monitoring and evaluation, develop marketing plan, develop business plan, advertising, public relation, direct marketing, facilitate in accessing financial services, connect with banks, FIs, cooperatives for accessing financial services, etc. A strategic document consisting of internal analysis (strength, weakness, opportunities and threats, capital, human resources etc), external analysis (buyers, value chain), product market combination, competitor’s analysis should be prepared and supported with financial plan and possible financing sources.
• Facilitate in Access to Finance:  The BDS should support entrepreneurs for accessing loans and financial services. To ensure targeted entrepreneurs have proper access to financial services, BDS provider will support in preparing business plan, business proposal preparation of relevant documentation, facilitate meeting and coordination among financial institutions. It is targeted that at least 40 % of the project supported entrepreneurs will have access to finance through BDS providers support.  
• Provide on-site and off-site coaching, mentoring and follow-up support to entrepreneurs: To ensure everything is moving as planned, the consultant should follow up with the trained entrepreneurs and continue coaching for at-least 1 year to boost up their capacity on business management. Consultant would review and follow their business plan and financial health, and provide recommendation accordingly and ask to prepare corrective action plans. The Consultant keeps in touch with key entrepreneurs, focal person, etc so that they can coach as and when required, however it is scheduled to coach and follow up with the same group of trades at-least once in every 2 months.

3. METHODOLOGY

The consultant or firm should work closely with the implementing partners, beneficiaries enrolled in the project and collect data and information as needed to provide complete Business Development Services. The firms/company should provide support and services to trained youth and women adopting a business innovation, entrepreneurship and value chain approach. The assignment should be carried out in participatory and exploratory method with using unique BDS tool and techniques (also recommend to use certified/standard tools, if any). The consultant or firm should work closely with the project team of all four partners and relevant stakeholders and follow various process, but not limited to the following: 

• Consult with LWR, implementing partners and understand the scope of work.
• Documents review (project proposal, rapid market assessment report, business readiness assessment report),
• Conduct meeting with youth and women being involved in training, technical training institutes, understand the prospects of the trades/enterprises,   
• Conduct meeting and discussion with local governments, private sector actors at project implementation areas of Saptari, Gorkha, Nawalparasi-West, Bardiya and Kailali districts and understand possible support/leverage resources with youth and women. 
• Support the Entrepreneurs or business people for exploring the markets, employment opportunities and accessing to the financial services 
• Conduct meeting with financial institution (cooperative, MFI and banks) and study relevant documents required to access financial services.

4. Key tasks/ deliverables

The Business Development Service Provider in close consultation with LWR to cover the following tasks: 

• BDS Provider should provide hands-on support entrepreneurs of the ‘Youth and Women Entrepreneurship Development Projects, being implemented by four partners i.e., NEEDS Nepal, DAFUO, SAHAMATI and KVS and strengthen their business.
• Consultant/Firm should conduct key tasks following the standard curriculum of BDS as follows- 
  • Conduct enterprise assessment and provide necessary recommendations for upgrading/strengthen/startup of their business,
  • Provide support to prepare marketing promotion strategy to 75 % of the project supported beneficiaries. 
  • Provide support to prepare business promotion strategy and facilitate in access to finance to 75 % of the project supported beneficiaries.
  • Ensure at least 40 % of the project supported entrepreneurs have access to finance through BDS providers support
  • Provide on-site and off-site coaching, mentoring and follow-up support to entrepreneurs,
• Consultant/Firm should prepare and share the detail implementation plan to strengthen the business, detail business understandings, upgradation skills of the entrepreneurs. 
• Prepare trade-wise full package guidelines for entrepreneurs, which should include detailed business plan, potential financial institutes and requirements for accessing financial services, business viability and longer-term strategy.
• A consultant firm should be able to provide all necessary support and linkages with financial institutions (especially) bank and make them able to access the loan from the Bank (at least 40 % per partners)
• Facilitate entrepreneurs to make them employable linking with the private sector or government sectors (at least 40 % per partner)
• Firm should provide short and concise feedback report to LWR on bimonthly report including progress, bottlenecks and suggestions for improvements. 
• Consultant/Firm will submit a report by the end of the project with recommendation. The report will contain a summary of the trades, enterprises being promoted, training being facilitated, number of enterprises established, number of people employed, potential areas for establishment of market outlets/centers, potential financial institution for access to finance. The report will be concise and describe the process, training methods used, background of the marketing and business promotion strategy, curriculum followed and suggestions with follow-up actions.

LWR and its partners will support consultant/firms to introduce with participants to perform abovementioned tasks.

5. Timeline

The consultancy service will be undertaken in two shifts (FY-I and FY-II), Few Deliverables should be accomplished in FY-I (till Sept, 2023) and others till 30th Sept, 2024.

Level of effort is estimated as follows: 

6. Competencies and Qualification

The consultancy shall be led by independent professionals or consulting firm who has the following qualifications and experience:

• At least 7 years’ experience of working in the field of Capacity strengthening of the entrepreneurs, cooperatives, enterprise assessment, preparation of business plan, access to finance, preparation of marketing and promotion strategy, financial literacy training.
• Experience of coaching and mentoring entrepreneurs on on-farm and off-farm trades/skills or cooperatives.
• Tangible experience for creating employments (jobs or internship) and scaling up the entrepreneurship (farm or off-farm)
• Ability to conduct/facilitate the training in Nepali language. 
• Willingness to stay in the remote communities during the training period. 
• A bachelors’ degree in related discipline.  

Interested consultants/firms are requested to send an Expression of Interest (EoI) and provide evidence to support claims of knowledge, skills and experience:

• A short proposal (not more than 5 pages) on how to fulfil the requirements of the ToR,  and also the FY wise financial proposal for the tasks mentioned in the ToR,
• Resumes/CVs with references,
• A sample of a similar assignment report (if possible).

7. Contact/Focal person

Please send your proposal including financial proposal details to- lwrnepalcontact@lwr.org no later than CoB 31st May, 2023. No phone calls will be allowed.