Consultant - Empowering Women Entrepreneurs

Background:

In 2016, the Indonesian government issued a Government Regulation on the National Financial Inclusion Strategy with a stated goal that by 2019, the financial inclusion rate would reach 75% and the financial literacy rate would reach 35%. Based on the National Financial Literacy and Inclusion Survey conducted by the Indonesian Financial Service Authority (OJK) in 2016, the financial literacy rate in Indonesia was 29.6%, an increase from 21.8% in 2013. Meanwhile, the financial inclusion rate was 67.8%, which is an increase from 59.7% in 2013. However, when this number is disaggregated, Indonesian women had a lower level of financial literacy, at 25% compared to men at 33%. Meanwhile, the level of financial inclusion for Indonesian women stands at 60% compared to 69% of men. We expect that this program will contribute to achieving the targeted financial inclusion and financial literacy rates by the end of 2019, especially for adult women, including women micro and small entrepreneurs.

Purpose / Project Description:

Mercy Corps Indonesia will support women-led micro and small entrepreneurs (with less than 19 employees) in Bogor Regency and Batam City with increased access to financial services, business training and mentoring, and business development.

Based on Mercy Corps Indonesia’s experience, we will use a partnership model to deliver services to entrepreneurs while building the networks and infrastructure that will support entrepreneurs into the future. We will leverage existing relationships with financial institutions, chambers of commerce, business service providers, community business organizations and peer networks to link women entrepreneurs to markets (input, financial and output) with a particular focus on mobilizing financial products, such as branchless banking platform in Indonesia, known as Laku Pandai. By the end of the project, at least 250 women entrepreneurs will have taken part in training and mentoring activities; increased their use of formal financial services or other business inputs; increased their business activities; hired additional employees or reported increased income.

The project team conducted a needs assessment of women entrepreneurs in June to July 2020, involving 50 participants from one district called Kecamatan Batu Aji, in Batam City. The assessment aimed to gather information about their saving behavior, financial management behavior, and needs in developing their business. The findings of the needs assessment include the following:

• 73% of women entrepreneurs are between 35 to 49 years old.
• 78% of them are senior high school graduates.
• 47% of women entrepreneurs run their businesses between 2 to 5 years, and the other 25% of them run their business between 6 to 10 years.
• 84% of women entrepreneurs own savings in formal or informal channels. However, only 49% own saving accounts at the bank or other micro finance institutions.

With regard to access to financial services and mobile phone ownership, the potential participants are:

• 98% of them have a mobile phone that can access internet service, and majority of them have utilized internet facility to support their business. However, majority of they only utilize internet connection for business development by using messaging applications and social media services.
• 80% of women entrepreneurs have divided their financial records between the business and household. Also, 63% of them have practiced financial bookkeeping.
• Most of them experience a negative impact by the pandemic of Covid-19, especially in the decline of business revenue, and difficulty in sales.
• The types of businesses that most of these women run are food and beverages (76%), clothing industries (14%) and producing handicraft (14%).

Objectives of the consultancy:

In light of the training needs identified as part of the needs assessment, the Empowering Women Entrepreneurs Program requires a consultant to develop the training module (including mentoring subjects) and training tools for women entrepreneurs prior to project implementation. This module shall contain the reflection of needs of specific skills and knowledge that are gathered from the needs assessment, related to financial management and business management for women entrepreneurs. The consultant should   also strategically  present  alternative solutions to the current situation of the saving behaviour and financial management behaviour of the women entrepreneurs and recommend ways to improve access to information on the wider saving products and available services. The training of women entrepreneurs will be targeted in the districts of Batu Aji, and Bogor Regency.

Consultant Activities:

The Consultant will develop the training modules and training tools that will be used for training women entrepreneurs in the Batam City – Kecamatan Batu Aji, and Bogor Regency – Kecamatan Cileungsi and Gn Putri . The consultant shall ensure to:

• Conduct review of the existing training modules/material available within Mercy Corps Indonesia.
• Prepare training modules and training tools related to saving mechanisms; savings purpose, saving channels and services, financial literacy, and financial management for both business and household that will be delivered in the training for the 250 women entrepreneurs.
• Prepare training modules and training tools related to saving mechanisms; savings purpose, saving channels and services, financial literacy, and financial management for both business and household and create and elaborate guidelines for the trainer to be used in the training of 250 women entrepreneurs.
• Conduct pilot trainings to test the training modules and training tools prior to the actual training and make revisions as necessary.
• Finalize the training modules and training tools for the training of 250 women entrepreneurs.

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant should complete these main outputs:

1. Develop the outline of training module and training tools for both Women Entrepreneurs
2. Develop Trainers’ Guidelines.
3. Based on the outline of training module and training tools, develop and finalize  training module and training tools to be reviewed by the Training, Mentoring and Monitoring Coordinator, Project Manager and Program Director (if necessary).
4. Final training module and training tools.

The consultant should develop a very clear and structured training module and guidelines. The main content of the module should not exceed 50 pages to be used in an average of 2.5 hours of training session over 3 months period. Training tools for exercise should be developed separately, including list of tools for practice required based on assessment needs. The tools should have relevance to the assessment analysis, findings and conclusion. The consultant should provide a clearly articulated work plan, detailing out each work and the number of corresponding days required.

Consultant Qualifications:

We need a consultant with a strong background in training and module development, in particular in Financial Services, Financial Inclusion, or Economic Development sector. The Consultant should have excellent knowledge of training method and session planning, and good understanding in participatory process. It would be beneficial if the Consultant have the following skills and competencies:

1. Demonstrate experience of producing high quality training module related to financial literacy, financial management, or business management.
2. Experience working with NGO in rural area would be an advantage.
3. Ability to write in a simple structure and clear Bahasa Indonesia and translate field information/assessment results into well-defined subjects.
4. Adequate knowledge of branchless banking, financial services or financial inclusion and business management.
5. Excellent writing and verbal communication in Bahasa Indonesia, good understanding of English is a plus.

Timeframe / Schedule: 

This consultancy work must be completed within 20 working days started upon the signed date of contract or based on the agreed date of both parties, and not exceeding 14 August 2020.

The Consultant will report to:

Program Coordinator – Empowering Women Entrepreneurs

The Consultant will work closely with:

Training, Mentoring and Monitoring Coordinator of Empowering Women Entrepreneurs

To Apply:

Interested candidates could email the CV to procurement@id.mercycorps.org before July 08th, 2020. Only candidates who meet the qualifications will be contacted.