Local Economic Development Project Assistant

Title: Local Economic Development Project Assistant

Organization: International Labour Organization

Contract Type: short term engagement (with possibility of extension)

Duty Station: Hargeisa (Somaliland) and Garowe (Puntland) - with extensive visits to districts

Application Deadline:31st August 2015

Introduction

Under the Joint Programme on Local Governance and Decentralized Service Delivery, the Local Economic Development Project Assistant will provide technical support services in areas of local economic development, investment promotion and business licensing, entrepreneurship and Public-Private Partnerships. S/he will support the key LED actors in performing their mandates, with a focus on the target LED districts; support preparation and updating of LED strategies, research and analysis, support the business licensing reforms already realized in the local governments and offer technical advice on the design, implementation and evaluation of LED projects, local investment promotion, facilitate Public-Private dialogues and trainings. The assistant will also assist in standardizing and collecting of data for the M&E indicators framework and reporting on activities.

Description of Duties

The LED Project Assistant is expected to perform the following functions:-

i.Local Economic Development

1. Provide technical guidance and mentoring support to MOI, Ministry of Commerce, local governments departments of planning and LED forums and other stakeholders to undertake LED-related mandates and functions.
2. Support dialogue on and provide technical input into the establishment of the national LED framework in line with the decentralized policy – defining institutional framework for LED.
3. Support the development of annual action plans for the local governments and forums to be derived from the LED Strategies and support its coordinated implementation by the various relevant actors including the local governments, private sector, sector ministries and development partners
4. Support the review of the LED toolkit and development of training materials
5. Facilitate LED training workshops, dialogues, and promotional events with the local governments and forums, engaging the chamber of commerce, business associations and relevant private sector entities
6. Support local government Planning departments and Forums to establish a simple M&E system to track the results of LED activities and investments (both in terms of process and impact monitoring)
7. Based on the monitoring and evaluation of programme results, document lessons learnt regarding the approaches and investments that have proved most and least successful and establish lessons learned are fed back into process.
8. Assist in and provide support to the process of project development by local governments, which will include project profile development, market and feasibility studies (when required) and the development of the project document/package in preparation for implementation.
9. Conduct periodical missions to selected local governments to monitor ongoing LED interventions and provide the necessary technical backstopping and mentoring support to local governments departments staff

ii.Local Investment Promotion and Business Licensing

1. In close cooperation with LED team, local governments and relevant ministries/agencies, support the identification of local investment initiatives in line with local governments potential and strategies.
2. Based on the priority investments identified in the Local LED Strategy, support Local governments to design viable business plans and implement investment projects ensuring linkage to relevant line ministries, the business sector and other stakeholders.
3. Work with local governments, chamber of commerce, business associations, and investors to package and promote their local economic potentials.
4. Work with local governments and forum to promote investment opportunities and needs to attract private sector investment – and to design and provide appropriate incentives to enter into public private partnership agreements
5. Provide advisory support to local governments in adopting business licensing reforms undertaken and stimulating dialogues that build trust and improve service delivery and revenue generation.

iii.Public Private Partnership

1. Facilitate Public-Private Partnership (PPP) dialogues and training workshops to enhance the understanding and application of PPP models in target local governments.
2. Work with international experts, Ministry of interior and local institutions to implement PPP policy recommendations/action plan.

Required Qualification

Education

University degree in economics/ business/ finance, local development, planning or other relevant field

Experience

Four years’ experience at the national level in the fields of economic or private sector development programmes within government bodies or development partners or management/technical position with the private sector.

Technical experience and/or in depth knowledge of the following areas:

ž Economic development project formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation and / or Business Plan development, resource mobilization and day to day business management within the private sector

ž Staff coaching and capacity building

ž Knowledge and understanding of economic development approaches

ž Knowledge and understanding of project implementation in one or more of the following areas: infrastructure investment, regulatory reform, skills development and investment promotion

ž Demonstrated problem solving skills

Languages

Excellent command of English and Somali languages

HOW TO APPLY:

Please send your curriculum vitae marked "LED Project Officer – Garowe/Hargeisa by 31st August, 2015 to: Email: hrsomalia@ilo.org