Technical Expert (STTA) Business Analyst – IPA Fund Component

Sungi Development Foundation; Islamabad; Hybrid; PKR 2,750,000 - 3,500,000; Full time

Job summary

An established industry player is seeking a Technical Expert (STTA) Business Analyst to support the USAID Pakistan Investment Promotion Activity. This role involves evaluating grant applications, assessing their feasibility, and providing comprehensive feedback to enhance business solutions for Pakistani firms. The ideal candidate will have extensive experience in business model analysis and excellent English communication skills. This is a unique opportunity to contribute to improving the investment climate in Pakistan while working with a dynamic team. If you have a passion for fostering economic growth and possess the necessary expertise, we invite you to apply and make a significant impact.

Qualifications

• 10+ years of experience in business model analysis, preferably in target sectors.
• Strong English communication skills, both oral and written.

Responsibilities

• Review and evaluate grant applications for viability and reasonability.
• Provide detailed comments and scores based on established criteria.

Skills

Business Model Analysis

Evaluation of Grant Applications

Oral and Written English Skills

Education

Bachelor's Degree in Business Administration

Master's Degree in Economics

Tools

Microsoft Office Suite

Job description

Technical Expert (STTA) Business Analyst – IPA Fund Component

The USAID Pakistan Investment Promotion Activity (IPA) aims to support firms registered in Pakistan to scale-up their business solutions through innovative approaches to improve business processing standards. Through the IPA Fund, the project will provide grants to firms registered in Pakistan that have high potential for raising for FDI and/or are interested in enhancing trade with the United States. For this purpose, IPA intends to engage the professional consultancy services of a qualified business analyst specialized in doing evaluation of the potential grant applications in terms of their reasonability, allocability and relevancy to the proposed project and provide comprehensive evaluation/feedback to the IPA Fund team.

1. Position Title & Department:

Technical Expert (STTA) Business Analyst – IPA Fund Component

2. General Summary:

The USAID Investment Promotion Activity (IPA) is a five-year project that is helping to strengthen Pakistan's business enabling environment, build the capacities of Pakistani institutions focused on investment promotion, improve the ecosystem of foreign direct investment (FDI), and increase United-States-Pakistan bilateral trade and investment. The project is also helping to remove barriers to investment and trade by facilitating Pakistani-led improvements in government regulations and improving the overall investment climate.

Within the project, the IPA Fund Grants component aims to support Pakistani registered firms leverage Pakistani private sector investment (PSI) to support Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and increase U.S.-Pakistan bilateral trade/investment. The IPA Fund will support firms registered in Pakistan to scale-up their business solutions through innovative approaches to improve business processing standards.

IPA Fund has announced regular solicitations to seek grant applications for its multiple types of funding streams: Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) Grants, U.S.-PAK Trade (USTP) Grants, and Tech Transfer Grants (TTG). The grant opportunities are for existing firms registered in Pakistan to increase their competitiveness in USAID IPA’s priority sectors which includes Information and Communications Technology (ICT), Agricultural Technology and Processing, Manufacturing, and Tourism and Hospitality. However, firms not from these sectors are also eligible to apply.

3. Objective of the Consultancy:

Objective: The specific objectives of the assignment are:

1. Review the Grant Applications along with budgets and assess desirability, viability, and reasonability of the proposed interventions.
2. Provide detailed comments and assign justifiable scores to the grant applications and budgets based on the technical evaluation criteria established in the Request for Application (RFA).

Under the given assignment, the expert will be responsible for performing each task/activity related to the assignment as directed by the IPA Fund team lead (Senior Grants Manager) and/or his designee. All the activities performed by the expert must be in line with the awarded contract and scope of work. The expert will perform the activity by keeping in view the business protocols/scope and quality parameters defined in the contract as per Chemonics policies. The expert will be responsible to furnish filled scoring sheets for each grant under review within the allocated time.

5. Specific Tasks of the Consultant:

The specific tasks under this consultancy include:

1. The expert should be willing to sign-off the Non-Disclosure Certificate (NDC) to protect and uphold the confidentiality and should have a functional understanding to make the necessary declaration of Conflict of Interest (COI).
2. Conduct a desktop review of the grant applications to assess its business sense and viability of the solutions proposed.
3. Provide detailed comments on the proposed grant activities for individual grant application and assign reasonable scores as per the predefined technical evaluation criteria established in the RFA document.
4. Participate in grants evaluation meeting amongst the evaluation panel members consisting of technical sectoral experts and financial expert for essential deliberation on the evaluations and finalize the score.
5. Submit the finalized scoring sheets to IPA Fund team for needful consolidations and ranking.

6. Job Qualifications

Person Specifications

Level of Effort

Technical Expert (STTA) - Business Analyst

• Bachelors/Master’s degree in Business Administration/ Economics/ any other relevant field to Business Management.
• At least 10 years of business model analysis experience preferably within the approved target sectors.
• Excellent oral and written English language skills

31 days

7. Duty Station:

The technical expert is expected to attend the grants technical evaluation meetings organized in Islamabad; however, the desktop review of grant applications can be done remotely.

8. Workspace and Use of Personal Laptop and Software(s):

The technical expert will be required to use his/her own personal laptop and must certify that all software used are genuine and licensed; to ensure that the project’s IT resources are protected from accidental destruction or deliberate attempts at sabotage by computer viruses and other hazards.

9. Reporting:

The technical expert will report to the IPA Fund Grants Focal Point (Senior Grants Manager) and shall be working closely with him.

10. Duration of the Assignment:

This job is planned to take place as per a start date of on or around November 1, 2023, and end date of on or before May 31, 2024, hereto for a total of 31 days LOE.

The timeline for the LOE assigned for each activity as mentioned in the following table will be discussed and agreed with the IPA Fund Grants Team and the expert. Final deliverables under this assignment will be the grant evaluation and scoring sheets filled for each grant application under review.

This position will remain open until we find the right candidate. Interviews will be conducted on a rolling basis.