The Mission of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development (MRRD) is to ensure the social, economic, and political welfare of rural society, especially poor and vulnerable people, through the provision of basic services, strengthening local governance, and promoting sustainable livelihoods. MRRD accomplishes this mission through donor funded national programs in the areas of governance, infrastructure and economic growth.
The Afghanistan Rural Enterprise Development Program (AREDP) funded by IDA and ARTF[1] is aimed at harnessing the potential of the private sector for inclusive economic growth and sustainable job creation in rural Afghanistan. The program aims at building on the social capital gained under the National Solidarity Program (NSP) and transforming it into economic capital. The overall development objective of the project (PDO) is to “improve employment opportunities and income of the rural men and women, and substantially of targeted local enterprises.” This will be achieved by enhancing participation of rural poor in economic activities, supporting them through business development services and access to finance, and improving market linkages and value chains.
AREDP consists of two program components, (1) community-led micro enterprise development (Component –A), which deals with supporting to village-based micro enterprise activities including access to finance, which again comprises community facilitation, forming and nurturing of savings groups, village savings and loan associations, establishing and supporting enterprise groups, rural entrepreneurs around market driven micro enterprises to develop linkages access to technical services, micro finance and market. (2) The Enterprise development (Component-B), which deals with Enterprise facilitation, business development support and access to finance for Enterprises, which would be worked with sectors and approximately 750 Enterprises will supported.
The overall objective of the assignment is to pilot concept of ODOP to capitalise on generated social and financial capital through Savings Groups and building on the experience; and design ODOP strategy integrating lessons from the pilot and implement the same in above said 5 provinces of Afghanistan for enterprise development. The services of facilitating agency shall leads to the best services and linkages to Micro Enterprises (MEs), Rural Entrepreneurs (REs) and Enterprise Groups (EGs) to enable, guide and facilitate them, develop relevant linkages to develop rural micro enterprises leading for enhancing sustainable rural livelihoods.
Enterprise Development Experts
The experts must have minimum 10 years’ experience of enterprise development or related along with an advanced University degree in business development, economic development or related field.
Afghan citizenship is preferred.
For any further information, please do not hesitate to contact the following email addresses:
flaminia.sferracarini@sim-spa.it ; arianna.catena@sim-spa.it
[1] ARTF Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund
