Agricultural Credit Guarantee Specialist at Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture (CNFA)

Program Description

• The five-year USAID Feed the Future Nigeria Agribusiness Investment Activity aims to strengthen the enabling environment for agribusiness finance and investment.
• To achieve this goal, the Activity focuses on four interrelated components:
  • Improving the enabling environment for agricultural sector growth;
  • Broadening access to finance by mitigating the credit risks of agribusinesses;
  • Promoting and facilitating investment opportunities for agribusinesses to expand and scale up operations; and
  • Sustainably enhancing the performance of agribusiness micro, small and medium size enterprises (MSMEs). In line with the U.S. and Nigerian governments’ commitment to growing the non-oil-based economy, these efforts will increase the depth, breadth, dynamism, and competitiveness of Nigeria’s agribusiness sector.
• The Activity is in seven focus states of Benue, Cross River, Delta, Ebonyi, Kaduna, Kebbi and Niger. It has soybean, maize, aquaculture, rice and cowpea as focused commodities.
• To improve the agribusiness enabling environment in Nigeria through initiatives that could broaden access to finance for agribusiness value chain actors, the Activity seeks to build the capacity of NIRSAL PLC to strengthen NIRSAL’s capability to promote improved agribusiness lending exploring the opportunities with joint guarantee schemes available in the market

Position Description

• The Agribusiness Investment Activity is seeking a local or international consultant to provide a training on the development of co-gurantee instruments for NIRSAL PLC, a Non-Bank Financial institution (NBFI) with the primary mandate of facilitating the flow of credit to agribusiness value chain players and collaborating with stakeholders to fix broken agricultural value chains in Nigeria.
• This training is expected increase the reach of her operations by boosting the capacity of their staff on the development of co guarantee instruments to allow NIRSAL expand its partnership to other local and international guarantee companies to increase lending to the Agricultural value chain.

The training will focus on the following topics:

• Credit Exposure: Measuring Probability of Default and Recovery Rate
• Margin Collateral
• Credit Analysis & Process
• Credit Risk: Measuring & Managing Credit Risk
• Concept of Co-Guarantee: Definition, Process and Practice
• Case Study in Co-Guarantee
• Agri-Finance Product Diversification and Development
• Managing Risks
• The consultant will report to the Chief of Party, through the Director of Finance and Investment while working closely with other designated Activity Staff.

Scope of Work
The Consultant is required to implement the following specific tasks:

• Review the current administrative and management process of NIRSAL’s CRG and rapidly check for the factors limiting its adoption among commercial financial institutions, conduct through desk reviews and Key Informant Interview with selected representatives of FIs. Findings should be incorporated into training curriculum.
• Inception meeting with NIRSAL PLC and the Activity team to discuss the modalities of the training schedule, training materials and get more clarifications where applicable.
• Develop a training curriculum covers the key principles such as establishing an appropriate allocation of risks between Lenders, Guarantors and the MSME owners to minimize risk and maintaining Operating costs under the co-guaranteed scheme at acceptable levels and also incorporating training topics listed above.
• Ensure the training covers the development of the guidelines for various parameters such as eligibility criteria, cost of guarantee, settlement of claims etc. and the operational procedures including the monitoring and follow-up processes for the guaranteed loans for implementation
• Develop the 4-day Training Agenda
• Conclude and present report in prescribed formats.

Time and location schedule:

• The assignment is required to be completed within November 2022

Level of Effort (LOE):

• The total Length of Effort (LOE) for the consultant is expected to be 10 days (excluding travel if applicable)

Deliverables
The deliverables for this assignment will be:

• At the end of the training, the training consultant is expected to submit the following:
  • A training attendance list using the template issued by the Activity.
  • Completed pre- and post-training assessment forms.
  • A complete electronic copy of the training material delivered.
  • A written report of not more than seven pages containing an introduction, report on the training and key findings, conclusions, pre and post-test assessment score analysis, recommendations and at least five photographs taken during the training
• All written deliverables will be prepared using standard templates and appropriate branding and marking as applicable.

Required Skills and Experience

• The Agricultural Credit Guarantee Specialist must have a post-graduate qualification in business / finance / economics or related fields.
•  Must have at least 10 years’ experience relating to training, setting up, operationalizing, and administration of government or donor funded Credit guarantee schemes and / or banking operations pertaining to lending to the Agribusiness MSME sector.
• Must have worked on credit guarantees for MSMEs, preferably in African countries or other developing economies.