Call for Proposals – Consultant for local Policy Forum Romania

Terms of Reference 

Local Consultant for implementation of 4 Local Action Groups and Policy Forum in Romania 

The main goal is to support the Romanian microfinance sector in the stakeholder engagement process of organizing a country policy forum/roundtable that will support its sector’s  mission to provide financial products and business development services tailored to the development needs and repayment capacity of entrepreneurs and farmers with limited access to financial services. 

Role of Local Consultant 

The role of Local Consultant is to launch and  facilitate the stakeholder process that support advocacy effort towards local and international stakeholders through:  

  1. Organizing 4 meetings of stakeholder’s Local Action Group to support the mapping process (see point 2) and co-create the agenda and organization of the policy forum (see point 3) 
  2. Identifying relevant stakeholders and initiatives/programs to be invited/featured at the policy forum in a form of a mapping brief 
  3. Organize the Policy Forum event engaging key identified stakeholders and featuring key identified initiatives  

 The agenda of all activities will be consulted with MFC Policy Officer prior its execution and the consultant and MFC Policy Officer will stay in regular contact. 

This objective of the Group will be to elaborate a country level agenda for microfinance and will be achieved by facilitating discussion related to social finance policy and regulation, promoting the EU support measures and funding opportunities available to microfinance and social finance sector and collecting practitioners’ feedback regarding the EU programmes. The local action group will work towards delivery of a certain action – here policy forum and the local initiatives and stakeholders’ mapping brief. The goal is to encourage local level advocacy and information sharing about the relevant EU policies and programmes to develop a strong microfinance sector and raise awareness about social economy issues. 

Consultant Profile 

  • Working experience in microfinance of at least 10 years 
  • At least 10 year consulting or/and training experience 
  • Excellent training and facilitation skills 
  • Analytical skills 
  • Report writing skills 
  • Good interpersonal and communication skills 
  • Ability to create positive and friendly atmosphere 
  • Ability to speak English and Romanian 
  • Experience in similar projects for the microfinance sector 
  • Proven network of contacts in local Romanian microfinance  

Tasks 

The Consultant will be tasked to implement the following activities and in particular:  

  • Identify and engage key stakeholders in the 4 meetings of Local Action Group 
  • Organize 4 (online) meetings of the Local Action Group and supportive documentation (in Romanian – agenda, list of participants, minutes, other) 
  • Together with the Action Group map stakeholders and initiatives/programs that should be featured or/and invited to attend the policy forum 
  • Develop the agenda of the policy forum with the support of the Local Action Group Members 
  • Organize the policy forum/roundtable meeting with the support of the Local Action Group Members ensuring participation of the identified stakeholders and initiatives 
  • Write up 1 mapping research brief in English featuring key stakeholders and initiatives/program in Romania relevant to support of social finance  
  • Disseminate the mapping brief within the activities of European Microfinance Day and in coordination with the MFC 

Max. budget: 3000 EUR  

Interested consultants are requested to send their proposals in response to this TOR by 22/03/2022 to microfinance@mfc.org.pl