About the Organization:
United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) is the UN’™s capital investment agency for the world’s least developed countries. It creates new opportunities for poor people and their communities by increasing access to microfinance and investment capital. UNCDF focuses on Africa and the poorest countries of Asia, with a special commitment to countries emerging from conflict or crisis. It provides seed capital, grants, loans, and technical support to help MFIs reach more poor households and small businesses, and local governments finance the capital investments in water systems, feeder roads, schools, irrigation schemes that will improve poor peoples’ lives. UNCDF works to enlarge peoples’ choices: it believes that poor people and communities should take decisions about their own development. Its programs help to empower women: over 50% of the clients of UNCDF-supported MFIs are women and its expertise in microfinance and local development is shaping new responses to food insecurity, climate change, and other challenges. All UNCDF support is provided via national systems, in accordance with the Paris principles. UNCDF works in challenging environments, remote rural areas, countries emerging from conflict, and paves the way for others to follow. Its programs are designed to catalyze larger investment flows from the private sector, development partners, and national governments, for significant impact on the Millennium Development Goals, especially Goal 1: Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger, Goal 3: Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women, and Goal 7: Ensure Environmental Sustainability.
Background:
Despite the rapid growth of the microfinance industry in the past ten years, it is estimated that between two and three billion people still lack access to a broad range of financial products and services on a sustainable basis. The situation is particularly dire in the LDCs, where often more than 90% of the population is denied access to financial services from the formal financial system. UNCDF focuses its strategy on financial inclusion, which is universal access, at a reasonable cost, to a wide range of financial services, provided by a variety of sound and sustainable institutions. The range of financial services includes savings, short and long-term credit, leasing and factoring, mortgages, insurance, pensions, payments, local money transfers, and international remittances. Recognizing the importance of market leaders to drive sector development and the demand for safe, convenient savings products by low income populations, in 2008 UNCDF launched, with the support of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the LDC Fund to Develop Savings-led Market Leaders (MicroLead). In 2011, with the support of The MasterCard Foundation, the MicroLead Expansion program was launched which continues with the focus on microsavings while also emphasizing outreach to rural areas and women, technology innovations, responsible finance, and financial education and broadens the program’s target countries to include non-LDCs as well as LDCs. MicroLead provides loans and grants to leading financial service providers (FSPs) and technical service providers (TSPs) on a competitive basis to facilitate their entry into underserved areas, including in post-conflict contexts, where access to finance is most limited. The Fund has provided support to some of the leading FSPs from the South to expand their operations through green-fielding or technical assistance provision to existing FSPs, with a focus on saving-based models. To date, MicroLead and MicroLead Expansion have made 15 awards with an additional 13 projects approved (and moving to agreement) in 2012. In late 2012, UNCDF secured funding to expand MicroLead into Myanmar. Also recognizing the changing environment around financial inclusion, in 2012 UNCDF initiated a new diagnostic and programming tool called MAP (Making Access to Finance Possible). A MAP exercise will be conducted in Myanmar starting late 2012.
About the Job:
UNCDF is seeking a Program Specialist who will coordinate the MAP process in country over the course of the first twelve months of employment. Key outputs of the MAP process in Myanmar will be a national roadmap for financial inclusion and a related action plan for Myanmar, which intends to both define the financial inclusion agenda and align resources with key priorities. The basis for national financial inclusion roadmap and action plan will be formed by rigorous evidence-based and demand-oriented diagnostics followed by an intense stakeholder dialogue and decision making process. Funding for this position comes from the Myanmar-based Livelihood and Food Security Trust Fund (LIFT), a multi-donor fund that addresses food insecurity and income poverty in Myanmar. LIFT is managed by the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS). LIFT’s donors are the countries of Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, and the European Union. The incumbent will manage the successful implementation of the two LIFT-funded programs, MAP and MicroLead in Myanmar. Based in Yangon, the Program Specialist will join the MicroLead Program Management Unit and report to the UNCDF Senior Regional Technical Advisor Inclusive Finance (who is based in the Asia and the Pacific Regional Office in Bangkok) for issues related to MAP and general workplan, organization, administrative processes, and coordination with the rest of the Financial Inclusion Practice Area regionally, and to the MicroLead Program Advisor (who is based in the UN headquarters in New York) for all technical issues related to the implementation of the MicroLead program in Myanmar.
Tasks and Responsibilities:
- MicroLead:
- Oversee issuance of a request for applications for support in creating greenfield MFIs in Myanmar;
- Awards will be made based on investment committee review and approval of applications and the Program Specialist will ensure grantees initiate pro-poor financial institutions, with a focus on savings, which trend toward sustainability during the program tenure.
- MAP:
- Play a centrally important role in local project coordination (LPC) inside Myanmar in support of, and answering and reporting to, the MAP’s implementers, South African-based center for financial regulation and inclusion (Cenfri) and FinMark trust (FMT);
- Continuous and intense communication and coordination with financial inclusion stakeholders inside the Government, the financial sector and in the donor community. LPC for MAP will be a joint effort of the Program Specialist and the UNOPS/LIFT Markets and Microfinance Officer, further supported by a UNCDF local representative to be hired;
- Regular communication and coordination with, and reporting to, UNCDF’s senior regional technical advisor inclusive finance.
- During the initial twelve months following appointment, the Program Specialist will spend approximately 70% of her/his program time on the MicroLead program and 30% on MAP;
- For the subsequent years, 100% of her/his program time will be spent on MicroLead.
- Performance reviews of the Program Specialist will be conducted jointly by the Senior Regional Technical Advisor Inclusive Finance, Asia and the Pacific Regional Office, and the MicroLead Program Advisor.
- Work collaboratively with the MicroLead program management unit (currently consisting of a program advisor (NY-based) and two program specialists based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) to support the expansion, monitoring, and evaluation and knowledge generation of MicroLead/MicroLead Expansion.
Qualifications:
- Education:
- Master’s Degree in Economics, finance, business or public administration or related field.
- Experience, skills and qualifications:
- About 7 years of relevant experience at the national or international level;
- Extensive experience in project management, coordinating large projects and supporting stakeholder engagement related to financial inclusion and financial sector development, with an emphasis on savings mobilization, Greenfields and rural finance at formal financial institutions or related fields of finance, development and research;
- Deep technical knowledge and experience in (Micro) finance good practices for industry building, and development of inclusive financial markets and products in emerging markets, especially through private sector partnerships;
- Strong networking capabilities and ability to associate him/herself with a range of actors (including policy makers, regulators, FSPs and TSPs and donors) with a view to building relations and facilitating links;
- Strong program management experience with emphasis on monitoring, evaluation and incorporating lessons learned into microfinance projects and programs;
- Experiences with similar assignments in developing countries, including LDCs;
- Experience with, knowledge and understanding of the Myanmar financial sector;
- Excellent computer literacy, including research skills;
- Personal commitment, efficiency and flexibility, teamwork spirit with the ability to work independently or under minimum supervision;
- Excellent communication, presentation, written and verbal skills.
- Language Requirements:
- Fluency in English is required.
Closing Date: 07 Dec 2012
How to Apply:
Apply Online
Contact:
Mahesh Gautam
mahesh.gautam@uncdf.org
2 UN Plaza
New York
NY
10025
United States
Telephone: +1-2129063630
Fax: +1-2129066479
