EXPRESSION OF INTEREST
Business Development Services (BDS)
Support for Women-owned Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) (on cost-share basis)

Project Background

USAID Small and Medium Enterprise Activity (SMEA) project is implementing business development support (BDS) activities designed to facilitate growth and enhance productivity in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). The project is focused on helping small businesses by addressing challenges to business growth, sales/exports, access to markets, product development, quality control and compliance, IT/ICT development and digitization, and skilled workforce. SMEA will provide with support (subsidizing up to 50% of the fees) to acquire business development services from competent service providers.

For enterprises led by men, SMEA is focusing on sectors of ICT, hospitality, agri-processing, textile, light engineering and logistics.

In order to support women-owned enterprises[1], SMEA has adopted a sector agnostic approach. Female-owned/ led businesses from all sectors are eligible for support. Some examples of sectors where women are dominant are given below:

i)              Food and related businesses (home based food businesses, restaurants, bakeries, etc.)

ii)             Garments and accessories

iii)            Salons/ beauty parlors

iv)            Education (schools, franchises, tuition centers, publishing houses, content development)

v)             Handicrafts

vi)            Mosaic

vii)          Furniture

viii)         Services e.g. retailing, e-commerce, etc.

ix)           New technologies and business models (such as solar energy, day care centers, etc.)

The above list is not exhaustive, all businesses run by women are eligible to apply.

Opportunity areas for women-owned SMEs to acquire BD services on cost sharing basis under CE assistance include:

• Technical assistance: technical trainings, short courses, etc.
• ICT services: website and mobile based application development, software, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERPs), digital marketing, e-commerce, etc.
• Quality certifications: ISO 9000, safety and compliance standards (HACCP, ISO 22000) SA 8000, etc.
• Marketing support: product development, marketing collaterals, brand designs, etc.
• Marketing strategies: market intelligence and new market identification, etc.
• Accessing financial services: tax advisory, book keeping, financial management, etc.

Selection Criteria

The Program will support all eligible applicants (women-owned SMEs selected through a competitive selection process) to enhance their business capacities and productivity.

All interested women-owned SMEs, who wish to apply for this program will be selected based on the following criteria:

1. The SME must be owned by Pakistani National(s), legally registered with relevant authorities and having valid documents (mentioned below) as per Pakistani business laws.

• CNIC or NICOP
• NTN number issued by Federal Board of Revenue (for all type of business concerns e.g. sole proprietor, un-registered partnership, registered partnership or Private limited company)
• Proof of business ownership: Business registration certificate (in case of registered partnership or Private limited company)

1. The business must have verifiable business address and preferably a landline phone number.
2. The permanent employment should not exceed more than 250 staff inclusive of management, technical and non-technical staff.
3. Annul turn over must not exceed 800 million PKR. Please provide proof of previous year’s income by providing;

• Signed and stamped profit & loss statement (sole proprietor and un-registered partnership) (template is attached as Annex).
• Audited financial statements (income statement and balance sheet for registered partnership and private limited companies)

1. Minimum six (6) months of business history for women-owned businesses, counted from either business registration date, account opening date, and/or NTN registration date, whichever comes earlier.
2. SME must be willing to pay 50% of the cost of services.
3. The potential of the SME to increases sales, exports or jobs, through use of business development services will be assessed.

Note:

SMEA will support:

• Business development services (BDS) for consultancies, advisories, software and capacity building or technical skills trainings and activities.
• Support for software customization, data migration, installations, proto typing, testing, and/or implementation, excluding licensing renewal fees and domain hosting charges of any web based-service.

SMEA will not support:

• Any type of business payables: such as, bank guarantees, loans, bank interest, business taxes, utilities, salaries or honorariums; payments pertaining to recurrent fees, such as: annual fees, service charge, commissions, brokerage fees, franchising fees web hosting charges, sales commissions, management fees or club memberships, etc.

No financial assistance will be directly payable to the SMEs, the project will contract services on behalf of the SME.

Monitoring and Evaluation and Reporting:

Chemonics will have the right to perform monitoring and evaluation, by itself or through its subcontractor, periodically or randomly as the situation warrants to determine the progress and impact of enhancements to the business. In order to qualify for the assistance from Chemonics, the beneficiary SME will be required to complete a monitoring and evaluation baseline and meet monthly and/or quarterly reporting requirements.