Access to Finance (A2F) Officer at Adam Smith International

Tracking Code: 1115-112
Location: Kano, Nigeria
Department: Private Sector Development
Position Type: Full-Time/Regular

Programme Background
Mafita is a large-scale, six-year youth employment programme operating in Nigeria’s northern states, funded by DFID and implemented by Adam Smith International.  Through a combination of innovative skills development and job creation interventions, Mafita will support over 60,000 marginalised young people to find employment or become entrepreneurs by 2021.

Within the above scope, Mafita is mandated to support the economic empowerment of Northern Nigerian women, whose economic disenfranchisement has direct and adverse impacts on the country’s economic prosperity and development at the national, regional and community levels. Through its work, Mafita seeks to support women to access economic resources both directly by supporting women’s entrepreneurship, employment and access to finance, and indirectly by creating a more enabling environment for women.

Areas of Responsibility
The Access to Finance (A2F) Officer together with the existing A2F officer will be in charge of designing and overseeing the implementation of the Access to Finance (A2F) interventions including the design and development of Micro and Small Enterprise -friendly (MSE) finance and credit products, engaging and liaising with Financial Institutions (FI’s), capacity building for FIs, liaising with trade associations/clusters, beneficiaries from Apprenticeship and Community Skills Development Centres (COSDECs) and Business Development Service Providers (BDSPs) on financing of start-ups, and facilitation of the development and implementation of MSE friendly policies and strategies at state level.

Main Tasks

• Coordinate and ensure effective reporting and communications of the A2F intervention.
• Identify and engage with various financial institutions to broaden the funding base available to MSEs and start-ups. These engagements will be with:
  • Development Finance Institutions (DFI’s)
  • Commercial Banks
  • Micro-Finance Banks/Institutions (MFBs/MFIs)
  • Development agencies
  • Foundations, etc
• Explore opportunities to tap into non-conventional financing schemes
• Design and oversee implementation of a crowd-funding scheme
• Identify and explore funding opportunities through public sector empowerment schemes (e.g. state government grants
• Determine the requirements for short term technical assistance on the A2F intervention and effectively manage the inputs to ensure effectively delivery.
• Facilitate cultivation of strong and meaningful relations between key stakeholders, such as MFIs and trade associations/clusters - and where necessary, serve as a liaison between them.Collaborate to support Financial Institutions to stimulate lending to MSEs/start-ups; support partner financial institutions to develop new financial products for MSEs/start-ups - ensure the adequate implementation.
• Communicate findings and share lessons learnt during project delivery/implementation.
• Supervise the implementation of targeted interventions for particularly marginalised groups including adolescent girls and the Almajirai.
• Collaborate with cross-cutting technical managers to incorporate programme wide principles.
• Build strong synergies across all project components and leverage other interventions to reach project objective
• Facilitate the training and awareness creation of Mafita staff on A2F
• Facilitate links between financial institutions and institutions where marginalised youths receive training - supervise the cooperation.
• As may be required by team leader, Intervention Leads and Intervention Managers, provide flexible project assistance where needed for successful project delivery, especially during times of milestone delivery.
• Ensure full compliance of SharePoint usage guidelines.
• Support your unit in ensuring information / data generated is compiled accurately and uploaded to appropriate folder in SharePoint.
• Excellent interpersonal, verbal/written and communication skills.
• Reporting - You will also be required to adhere to all reporting requirements (both scheduled and ad hoc) regarding your team as communicated to you by the Project Management Unit.
• Meeting deadlines on all assigned tasks.

Requirements/Skills

• Degree in Business Administration, Accounting, Economics or any related field.
• A post-graduate degree in finance or any other relevant field would be an added advantage.

Required Experience:

• 3-year experience working in the financial services sector in Nigeria.
• Experience in credit risk appraisal.
• Experience in developing/appraising cash-flow analysis, cash-flow projections, etc.
• Experience in financial modelling and financial structuring to unlock finance, especially at micro-level.
• Experience working in a development project would be an added advantage.