Posted on :
24 Jul, 2020
24 Jul, 2020
The United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) makes public and private finance work for the poor in the world’s 47 least developed countries. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models that unlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF’s financing models work through three channels: inclusive digital economies, connecting individuals, households, and small businesses with financial eco-systems that catalyze participation in the local economy, and provide tools to climb out of poverty and manage financial lives; local development finance, that capacitates localities through fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance to drive local economic expansion and sustainable development; and investment finance, that provides catalytic financial structuring, de-risking, and capital deployment to drive SDG impact and domestic resource mobilization. By strengthening how finance works for poor people at the household, small enterprise, and local infrastructure levels, UNCDF contributes to Sustainable Development Goal-SDG 1 on eradicating poverty and SDG 17 on the means of implementation. By identifying those market segments where innovative financing models can have transformational impact in helping to reach the last mile and address exclusion and inequalities of access, UNCDF contributes to a broad diversity of SDGs. Based on this experience UNCDF started in 2017 to expand the scope of its programmatic agenda to go beyond digital finance. Through the “Leaving none behind in the digital era” strategy, UNCDF is supporting, through its digital finance interventions, the emergence of inclusive digital economies.
Job Description
Job Title: International Expert in remittance services and financial inclusion
Under this framework, UNCDF is currently expanding its expertise in Ghana under “Boosting Green Employment and Enterprise Opportunities in Ghana (GrEEn)” programme to be funded by the European Union Trust Fund for Africa. This programme will contribute to addressing the root causes of irregular migration through green and climate resilient local economic development and improving future prospects of beneficiaries, by creating employment and enterprise opportunities in selected sectors and regions (Ashanti and Western). The action aims at supporting job creation in regions of departure, transit and return of Ghana, creating local financial ecosystems that facilitate the development of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and enabling the transition of local economies to green and climate resilient development. The programme will use the lessons learnt from UNCDF experience in (i) Performance-Based Climate Resilience Grants (PBCRGs) which support investments for green and resilient local economies across 13 countries as well as (ii) best practices to advance increase access to finance for youth and digital finance. The action will be implemented in conjunction with SNV using their model for youth entrepreneurs ‘Opportunities for Youth Employment (OYE) programme’, SNV’s most advanced multi-country programme thus far, which targeted 27,000 rural out of school youth in Tanzania, Rwanda and Mozambique. For more information on GrEEn, please visit https://www.uncdf.org/green.
The main results under the UNCDF-EUTF agreement are the following:
It Will Do So Through Different Steps
Under Result 3 (access to finance), UNCDF wants to test and/or scale up innovative financial services linked to remittances. The UN General Assembly adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in September 2015. The 2030 Agenda recognizes migration as a core-development consideration, marking the first time that migration is explicitly integrated into the global development agenda. It also recognizes a major relevance of international migration as a multidimensional reality of and for the development of countries of origin, as well as transit and destination, which requires coherent and comprehensive responses. In particular under GrEEn, UNCDF will provide technical assistance to a selected group of FSPs, Money Transfer Operators (MTOs) and Fintechs to develop customer centric financial services linked to remittances. Partnerships with banks with services in Ghana and abroad will also be encouraged to increase outreach to the diaspora and channelling remittances through formal mechanisms (i.e. transfer from the senders savings account into the receiver’s savings account) and lower the costs for both the remitter and the receiver.
Duties And Responsibilities
UNCDF is keen to explore how remittances can be leveraged to improve avenues for savings, investment, and credit for migrants and their families. With this goal, UNCDF is looking for an Expert in Remittances and Financial Inclusion to support the GrEEn Team at the Regional Office to make sure the Phase 1 is adequately implemented and to achieve the project results by providing regular technical assistance and facilitating partnerships within the eco-system.. Under the supervision of the Technical Specialist and the Programme Manager of GrEEn, the Expert will be in charge of:
The Expert will be based in Accra, Ghana and will work in collaboration with the GrEEn team as well as the Regional Team based in Dakar, Senegal and the UNCDF support services team.
DETAILED ACTIVITIES AND DELIVERABLES
Activities and deliverables expected by the Junior Expert are as follow:
Number of Days
Timeline
Assess the remittance ecosystem at country level and identify investments in this area for UNCDF (30%)