Job Description
1. BACKGROUND
- The Financial Sector Development Department (PIFD) of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has primary responsibility for leading the implementation of the Bank Group’s Financial Sector Development Strategy & Policy, bringing together all financial sector development initiatives across the Bank under one roof, in line with the Bank’s strategy, in order to create a solid platform providing leadership, and
- coherence to address challenges relating to the persistence of systemic financing gaps affecting critical sectors across Africa, spiralling number of financial actors, amid shifting regulatory concerns.
- PIFD is fully responsible for the Bank’s sovereign and non-sovereign financial sector operations in Africa’s 54 Regional Member Countries (RMCs) including the provision of: equity participation, guarantees, and lines of credit to financial intermediaries, loans to qualified corporates and technical assistance among others. One of the main division in PIFD is the Trade Development Division, which is responsible for providing trade finance solutions to financial institutions and soft commodity facility for corporates engaged in supporting regional and international trade in Africa.
- The need to increase trade amongst RMCs with the rest of the world is therefore a key priority of the AfDB. Africa’s trade has tripled in volume over the past decade, and this has generated increased demand for trade finance that is not fully met by the available supply.
- To help bridge the continent’s trade finance gap, the AfDB launched a Trade Finance Program (TFP) in February 2013. The TFP offers complementary products whichprovide liquidity and risk mitigation support to financial institutions (FIs) and commodity corporates in Africa: (i) Trade Finance Line of Credit; (ii) Soft Commodity Finance Facility (SCFF); and (iii) Risk Participation Agreement (RPA). The experience gained from implementing the TFP as well as signals from the market show that there is further demand for other trade finance products such as ‘direct guarantees’ (DGs). The DG would be provided by the Bank to a confirming Bank for the risk taken on an African FI.
- The immense demand for AfDB’s trade finance (TF) products coupled with the highly specialized nature of TF transactions in a dynamic global business environment necessitates a need for continuous re-defining of the Bank’s TF solutions to match market developments and the changing TF demands, in order to provide comprehensive TF solutions as well as technical assistance to FI’s and corporates in
- RMC’s.
- In light of the foregoing, the Bank is requesting for expressions of interest from suitably qualified individual Consultants to carry out research and analytical work and support the development of technical assistance function for the Trade Finance Cluster.
2. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSIGNMENT
The objective of this request is to hire a Consultant, experienced in trade finance and/or financial sector operations, strategy development and execution, capacity building in financial services, and SME finance to carry out identified tasks related to research and
analytical work, with a view to:
- Support the development of internal capacity to manage technical assistance requests, review policies and processes of accessing resources from various in-house trust funds applicable to TFP projects;
- Support the TF technical assistance function and help strengthen the capacity of financial institutions (FIs) and related corporate clients in RMC’s to effectively mitigate operational risks associated with TF transactions;
- Provide research, analysis and requisite support to develop the development of the Trade Finance Capacity Development Programme for SMEs and emerging banks;
- Work with a wider multi-disciplinary team in the review of the Bank’s TFP in line with the current operating environment and the Bank’s strategic direction.
3. MAIN ACTIVITIES AND DELIVERABLES
Under the supervision of the Division Manager and with guidance from the Chief Trade Finance Officer (who will be the Task Manager for this assignment), the successful candidate will be expected to undertake functions including, but not limited to the following:
3.1 Conduct due diligence on potential beneficiaries of the TF technical assistance throughout the region and other counterparties and where applicable prepare a technical appraisal proposal in coordination with the origination team;
3.2 Participate in supervision and due diligence missions in order to assess, ex-ante and ex-post, the commercial and developmental impact of the Bank’s interventions and to verify fitness of the Bank’s support to beneficiaries and counter parties;
3.3 The Consultant from time to time, will travel with the investment officers/project teams to understand and collect data for the proper technical analysis of TF projects for consideration for funding and technical assistance;
3.4 Participate in knowledge sharing and dissemination of knowledge on the TF technical assistance to both internal and external stake holders through conferences, workshops and learning programs; Perform any other duties as may be assigned by the Division Manager, which will include but not limited to the following.
3.5 Reviewing and providing comments for the improvement of quality of project documents (strategy documents, concept notes and project appraisal documents);
3.6 Drafting internal project documents, primarily project concept notes and project appraisal documents and ensuring that they meet the desired thresholds and are responsive to the internal approval processes of the Bank’s ecosystem;
3.7 Participate in various Bank committees as required, taking minutes and ensuring that there is follow up on decisions adopted;
3.8 Provide advice to the Task Manager on any knowledge management and learning activities on Trade Finance, and contribute to dissemination activities such as conferences, workshops and learning programs;
4. ADMINISTRATION/REPORTING
The successful Consultant will administratively report to the Division Manager (Trade Finance Division), Financial Sector Development Department, and will work under supervision of the Chief Trade Finance Officer (who is the Task Manager for this undertaking).
5. DURATION OF ASSIGNMENT:
The services of the Consultant will initially be required for 5 months from August 1st, 2017, with a possibility for extension subject to satisfactory performance.
6. QUALIFICATIONS AND EXPERIENCE
Minimum Educational level of Consultants:
- A minimum Master’s degree or equivalent in Finance/Business, Economics, International Trade, Law or related international development fields:
Experience Required:
- Minimum of two years and a maximum of five years of progressively responsible experience on issues related to Trade Finance, Strategy Development and Execution, Capacity Building in Financial Services, and SME Finance. Operational experience in Africa will be an advantage;
- Good understanding of Trade Finance instruments (and their derivatives) and their deployment, intra-African trade issues, and financial sector development issues.
- Previous consultancy experience with investment banks, multilateral and bilateral institutions.
- Excellent written and verbal communications skills in English and/or French and with sound working knowledge of the other.
- Good organization, research and report writing skills with a proven ability to work without close supervision;
- Excellent computer skills: (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.:).
- Strongly quantitative and analytical skills with an eye for detail.
- Be a national of one of the member countries of the Bank;
- Be under 32 years of age
7. LOCATION OF THE POSITION
The Consultant is expected to be based in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire. The expected commencement date is August 1st, 2017).
