REQUEST FOR EXPRESSION OF INTEREST
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT BANK
“Permanent Address : Avenue Jean-Paul II, 01 B.P. 1387,
Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire
Financial Sector Development Department/ Financial Intermediation and Inclusion Division
Email : adfi@afdb.org
- The African Development Bank (AfDB) “the Bank” hereby invites Individual Consultants to indicate their interest in the following Assignment : Bilingual (English and French) Digital Financial Services (DFS) Consultant, ‘the Consultant’ for the Africa Digital Financial Inclusion Facility (ADFI/the Facility) in the Financial Sector Development Department (PIFD) ;
- ADFI was established in 2019 and represents a partnership of the Bank working with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), Agence Française de Développement (AfD) the Ministry of Finance, Government of Luxembourg and the French Treasury, Ministry for the Economy, Finance and Recovery as the Initial Donors. ADFI seeks to break down the barriers to DFS growth and uptake inorder to advance financial inclusion through catalytic and strategic investments throughout Africa. ADFI’s design was informed by an in-depth market assessment that looked at the factors affecting DFS growth and uptake in several countries and regions in Africa. The Facility has identified four pillars of intervention to work across namely; (i) Infrastructure (ii) Policy and Regulation (iii) Products and Innovation and (iv) Capacity Building with Gender as a cross cutting theme.
The coordination unit set up by the Bank to operationalise ADFI is seeking to contract a highly experienced Bilingual DFS consultant to support its program objectives. The Consultant under the general supervision of the ADFI Coordinator will work in collaboration with the Bank’s officers across the Bank as well as with ADFI donors and key DFS stakeholders, and whilst working across the continent, will be the ADFI focal point for West, North and Central Africa ;
- The Consultant will primarily be responsible for project origination, design, structuring, terms negotiation and implementation oversight; and provision of high-level technical advice to project sponsors and implementation teams. By virtue of their experience and engagement with key DFS ecosystem players, the DFS consultant will also support ADFI’s advocacy and fundraising efforts by ensuring consistently high-quality project development and implementation as well as effective networking with DFS ecosystem stakeholders. They will also contribute to the knowledge and communication dissemination efforts for their projects and assigned focus areas within ADFI ;
- The successful candidates will have at least ten years core DFS experience whose expertise incorporates a good understanding of key DFS infrastructure, including payment systems and distribution networks, preferably in developing and emerging countries; hold a master’s degree in any of the development disciplines; proven experience in project origination, design, implementation and proposal writing and fluent in written and oral French and English ;
- The contract term is for one year with the possibility of renewal. The Consultant will be based at the African Development Bank headquarters in Abidjan Cote d’Ivoire. The expected start date is before or on 1st January 2022 ;
- The eligibility criteria, the establishment of a short list and the selection procedure shall be in conformity with the Bank’s Procurement Policy for Recruitment of Corporate Consultants and ADFI’s Operating Guidelines. Please note that interest expressed by a consultant does not imply any obligation on the part of the Bank to include him/her in the shortlist ;
- Interested and suitable candidates should submit an updated, concise and relevant to the role resume of not more than 4 pages and a cover note in MS word of no more than one and a half to two (2) pages summarising their suitability for the role to email address : adfi@afdb.org for the attention of the ADFI Coordinator. Please also indicate within the cover note and/or resume your nationality and level of fluency in English and French. The email title should read ‘ADFI Bilingual DFS Consultant’ and should be received latest by 05 PM GMT on 19th of November 2021.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SHORT LIST :
- A shortlist of three to six individual consultants will be established at the end the request of expressions of interest. The consultants on the shortlist will be judged on the following criteria on the basis of their updated resume.
| Level of education in general | 10% | |
| Educational relevant to the role | 15% | |
| Experience with the AfDB, other DFI’s, donors, key DFS stakeholders | 15% | |
| Number of years and depth of experience relevant to the role | 40% | |
| Language fluency in English and French | 20% | |
| TOTAL | 100% | |
Note: Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted and provided with a full Terms of Reference to respond to in more depth. Please consider your application unsuccessful if you do not hear from us within two weeks (14 working days) of the closure date.
Female Candidates are encouraged to apply.
Visit the ADFI website to learn more about our work and mandate www.adfi.org.