Relevant Experience:
- He/she must have Masters degree in MBA / Development Economics /Social Sciences or B.Sc. in Engineering
- At least 10 years of progressive professional experience related to micro-financing / entrepreneurship / labor market / business development services
- He/she must have vast experience and in-depth understanding of micro financing and entrepreneurship
- Experience of providing business development services to micro enterprises will be a plus
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
Job Description:
General Summary & Objective of Consultancy. Karachi being the largest city with over 15 million residents faces a variety of complex challenges, resulting in a multifold increase in crime in the recent years. A major contributor to a diminishing security situation in Karachi is the unemployment of youth. It can be argued that the unemployment, in part, is due to lack of the right skills and not because of non availability of employment opportunities. Once the youth is provided with the right vocational skills, it can help them in obtaining jobs, locally or abroad and they could also enter into self employment using these skills.
In this backdrop, USAID Firms Project intends to undertake a workforce development program in the following three troubled localities of Karachi to provide skills development opportunities to youth (men and women) that can help them secure employment in various sectors facing shortage of labor.
For developing strategy and implementation plan, the project intends to collect quantitative as well as qualitative information and data about the demand side and supply side through a structured study. The study will encompass the prevailing situation and quantum of unemployment, skills and education level of unemployed youth (men and women), and major restraining factor to acquire vocational skills. On other side, the study will identify the unmet needs of semi skilled / skilled labor of various industrial and service sectors as well as the available job opportunities in self employment sectors and in labor market of other countries, especially the Middle East.
This objective of this consultancy / SOW is to perform the demand side analysis of self employment opportunities available in Karachi for the youth of the aforementioned localities, along with the recommendations to enable youth to embark upon self employment related ventures.
B. Principal Duties & Responsibilities. Under this consultancy, the consultant will perform all of the tasks and activities clearly mentioned in this document or implied, which are required to complete this study in an effective way.
The consultant shall read, but are not limited to, the following material to fully understand the work specified under this SOW, to collect the necessary information and data, and to enrich the analysis and final report:
- Reports developed by/for various microfinance institutions / NGOs / Development agencies for self employment opportunities
- Any other relevant report / study / data
- Perform the demand side analysis to identify the self employment opportunities for the youth (men and women) of these localities where a person can start his / her own micro enterprise or start providing some services (free lance style) with enterprise training or / and some vocational training such as electrician, motor winders, drivers, plumbers. Moreover, opportunities in the area of manufacturing, services, retailing, food related items etc., can be explored.
- Identifying the constraints in starting a new micro enterprise, and reasons of high failure rate for such businesses. This assessment should be done for men and women entrepreneurs separately.
- Determine the available micro financing options, business development services, franchise support, institutional support etc., for small entrepreneurs, for men and women separately.
- Identify the enterprise development training needs, with duration and key contents for training programs on the topic: Successfully starting a micro enterprise, for men and women separately.
- Explore the business linkage prospects for micro businesses, where home-based women can get orders for marketable products.
- Undertake secondary research as well as two FGDs with the representative of microfinance institutions / parents / youth / opinion leaders / successful entrepreneurs to explore the various aspects of subject matter.
- The Expert will interact frequently with Vocational Training Expert for sharing of qualitative and quantitative data & information in order to be on same page regarding employment opportunities and related vocational training opportunities.
- Write down a comprehensive report (section of main report), on the basis of secondary and primary research, addressing all aforementioned aspects of the demand side of employment along with findings, analysis, and recommendations. The Expert is encouraged to recommend some innovative and out of box solution for starting micro enterprises, with minimum entry and exit barriers and low business risk rather than traditional micro-credit based models
Deliverables. The substance of, findings on, and recommendations with respect to the above mentioned tasks shall be delivered by Consultant(s) in a written deliverable in the format presented to the Consultant by the Team Lead.
a) List of documents, consulted for secondary research
b) The list of participants of the FGDs
c) The questions list of FGDs
d) A report (section of main report) that provides the self employment opportunities available for youth. The report must highlight the areas of potential micro enterprises, capital and skills set requirement, financial viability and possible source of funding, current limiting factor for youth to enter in such venture, any possible franchise model, and possibilities of USAID interventions, especially related to enterprise development training and vocational training.
The reports must provide findings, analysis and recommendations separately for men and women.