Improving Framework Conditions for a Competitive Private and Financial Sector (ProEcon)

Despite its high economic growth, Mozambique is still one of the world’s poorest countries. Growth rates of on average 8% of GDP over the past 10 years are due to investments in mega-projects and in the extractive sector that generate hardly any employment and income effects. In the Human Development Index 2011, Mozambique ranks 184th out of 187 countries evaluated.

The goal of the National Poverty Reduction Strategy 2011–2014 (Plano para a Redução da Pobreza, PARP) is to reduce poverty to 42% by 2014. The government of Mozambique intends to achieve that goal by

• increasing agricultural production

• through more employment

• and by promoting human and social development.

To that end it has adopted a strategy to improve the business climate and to promote small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and also a financial sector strategy for 2013 to 2022. The priorities set by the Mozambican government will promote the development potential for MSME which employ 95% of the population of Mozambique. The specific geographical conditions show great potential for the following sectors

• agricultural sector (only 16% of the agriculturally usable land is actually farmed),

• tourism sector (beaches, reefs, national parks),

• international trade (transit country for landlocked countries like Zimbabwe and Malawi, free trade agreements with the SADC).

Furthermore, nearly 100,000 women and men in Mozambique are members of informal savings and loan groups. Providing them with access to the formal sector through innovative and adapted financial services and products represents great potential for their further development.

Senior international expert (coordinator and senior advisor) – (8 months over 21 months)

The international expert (intermittent LTE)  will spend a total of 8 working months over the whole contract duration (of 21 months) on the project. Of these 8 months the expert is expected to spend around 4 months in Mozambique.

Key tasks:

• Overall responsibility for project implementation and project success

• Formulation of the inception report

• Conceptual work as described

• Development of an acquisition strategy for iDPPs (in cooperation with the long term national expert)

• Verify identified leads for iDPPs and close agreements

• Examination of incoming iDPP proposals and providing recommendations on the feasibility and development impact of all proposals to the ProEcon team

• Advisory services for the implementation of iDPPs

• Regular visits in Mozambique (against approval of ProEcon; at least 4 visits p.a., total of 4 months in Mozambique)

• Coordinating stages of the project with key stakeholders and ensuring transparency for the partners and GIZ

• Identifying the need for short-term assignments within the available budget, planning and steering the assignments, and supporting the local and international short-term experts

• Backstopping of the national experts and short-term experts

• Responsibility for monitoring and reporting in line with GIZ standards and feeding regular updated all relevant information into the monitoring system of ProEcon

• Preparing regular reports

• Ensuring the connectivity of project management with established GIZ practice by applying Capacity WORKS