Description:
Area: Tanzania
Application Deadline: 14/02/2011
Position Description:
infoDev is a Global Partnership Program, coordinated and served by an expert Secretariat housed in the Finance and Private Sector Vice Presidency (FPDVP) of the World Bank Group. Its strategic goal is to promote the growth of technology enterprises to enhance sustainable inclusive growth, competiveness, and jobs.
InfoDev focuses on the following key areas to achieve its goal :
• Assisting in taking technologies to market
• Assisting in creating and growing sustainable enterprises that are technology-enabled
• Promoting an enabling environment for innovation and adoption of appropriate technologies to promote enterprise growth as well as ensure effective competition so that the market functions to widen access to technology at affordable prices
• Disseminating research and best practices to enhance growth and sustainability of enterprises in the technology and technology-enabled space
• Building capacity to enhance the sustainability of enterprises
• Providing technical assistance to incubators to ensure Access to Finance (A2F) and Access to Markets (A2M)
InfoDev is a thought leader in technology-enabled small business incubation.
InfoDev’s global incubation network encompasses 300 plus business incubators and more than 20,000 small and medium enterprises, and has helped create over 220,000 jobs across 87 developing countries. Within the World Bank Group.
InfoDev has also been recognized as being cutting-edge in its use of web-based resources to develop, publish, and disseminate its work and facilitate debate and interaction among and between client countries and donors.
InfoDev is implementing an ambitious work program, which includes the “Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy Program” – a public/private partnership between the Government of Finland, infoDev, and Nokia. A key deliverable under the Creating Sustainable Businesses in the Knowledge Economy Program is designing a new program to help facilitate the start-up and growth of innovative post-harvest agribusiness SMEs.
The program explores the implementation of ‘Agribusiness Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centers’ (AIECs) which form part of a holistic approach to innovation, helping to effectively harness economic opportunities in developing countries through technology entrepreneurship, SME development and job creation.
The program includes the establishment of a global network of Agribusiness Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centers to facilitate and catalyze cross border, south-south and north-south collaboration.
AIECs support innovation and entrepreneurship by offering a full suite of services that address locally relevant barriers to the start-up and growth of innovative post-harvest agribusiness SMEs. In addition to incubating promising start-ups, these Centers can provide access to finance; production, testing and packaging facilities; market and technology information; and policy advocacy. In this way, a center can act as a national focal point for the advancement of a value added post-harvest agribusiness sector.
InfoDev’s agribusiness entrepreneurship program is led by the Operations Officer with advise from a Tehnical Lead. infoDev is seeking a short term consultant (STC) to assist with identifying and engaging agribusiness entrepreneurship stakeholders in Tanzania in the feasibility assessment and business modeling for an AIEC in Tanzania.
Scope of Work, Including Services/Deliverables’ Description:
The Consultant will report to the Operations Officer and work under the guidance of the Technical Lead on a day-to-day basis. The Consultant will be responsible for supporting the implementation of the Program in Tanzania and will be required to provide the following services and support:
• Conduct a thorough identification of the key stakeholders in the agribusiness sector. These stakeholders include financiers, entrepreneurs, private industry, researchers, universities, NGOs and government. The stakeholders should bring expertise from a range of agribusiness sectors including food and non-food agribusiness.
• Organize two stakeholder workshops and undertake a series of interviews (30-50) with agreed upon stakeholders to a :
• Raise awareness for agribusiness innovation and entrepreneurship and the role that an AIEC can play
• Identify 3-5 priority sub-sectors
• Determine the needs of agribusiness entrepreneurs and the barriers that stand in the way for the start and growth of innovative agribusiness SMEs in the sub-sectors, and d) facilitate and generate thought leadership on an Agribusiness Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre in Tanzania.
• Undertake the development, distribution and analysis of a questionnaire survey to a range of stakeholders. Using the outcomes, assist the Technical Lead in developing a draft business model for the Agribusiness Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre in Tanzania.
• Work with the infoDev Team to ensure that the program delivers the results within the expected timeframe and resource allocations.
Consultant Qualifications
• Demonstrated understanding of the agribusiness sectoral dynamics to identify key players/stakeholders in the public, private, non-governmental, and academic and donor communities. It would be advantageous for the candidate to have experience/knowledge in the agribusiness sectors in Tanzania specifically.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal and written communications skills that will result in stakeholder participation and buy-in through stakeholder introductions, interviews, workshops and telephonic interactions.
• Experience with conducting and analyzing surveys.
• Experience with organizing workshops.
• Evidence of strong project management skills that will lead to on-time delivery of expected outcomes.
• Demonstrated ability to take initiative and work independently.
• Experience working in a multicultural team.
• Experience working on entrepreneurship and SME development in developing countries.
• Fluency in English and French is required.
• At least 5 years relevant professional work experience.
Expected Schedule
• The consultant will be hired for up to 40 days during the period of March through August 2011.
• The position is based in Tanzania.
Application Instructions:
In responding to these terms of reference, please submit a covering letter and a CV using the World Bank eConsult2 system
(https://wbgeconsult2.worldbank.org/wbgec/index.html) (selection no. 1026276) no later than 11.59 pm Eastern Time, 14 February 2011.
In order to access the selection, do not log in to eConsult2. Instead, please click on the “Bidding Opportunities” link and look for the selection number.
Should you be unable to access the eConsult system, please submit your covering letter and CV to Julia Brethenoux at jbrethenoux@worldbank.org with a copy to info@infodev.org not later than 11.59 pm Eastern Time, 14 February 2011 mentioning in your subject line: “Tanzania Agribusiness STC EoI Selection # 1026276”.
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