Rapid Assessment and Opportunity
Index for Newly Merged
Districts in KP

Scope of Work Summary:

The USAID Small and Medium Enterprise Activity (SMEA) project needs to engage a team of consultants (on short-term basis) with experience in policy analysis and enabling environment and sectoral analysis to identify major challenges faced by SMEs in the Newly Merged Districts (NMDs) and identify opportunity areas for SMEA’s interventions. This assignment will require the identification of the relevant stakeholders and close engagement with them to understand the specific policies, regulations, physical and institutional infrastructure to help design interventions. To design firm level interventions, the consultants will map active economic sectors where SMEs are present including region specific geographic concentrations/clusters (if any), their respective products and services, their immediate and eventual markets and a basic listing of the types of challenges faced by SMEs in these sectors. The assignment will also include sharing the findings of the assessment at a Private and Public sector consultation session.

Specific Tasks of the Consultants:

• Meet with the SMEA COP, Component Leads for Business Enabling Environment, Competitiveness Enhancement, Challenge Fund and the Senior Policy Advisor to understand the specific requirements of the scope of work and the project as a whole.
• Study and understand the project background, approach and objectives and review other relevant studies/ material
• Design and develop a work plan/action plan within the first week of signing the contract and submit an inception report to SMEA (deliverable). The workplan should be inclusive of major activities, division of work among consultants, methodology review, proposed meetings, tools and other required formats/instruments.
• Undertake a desk research pertaining to the identification of the sectors, covering the economic survey (s), economic development plans (e.g. Five-Year plans, development frameworks etc.), Reports of different donors including World Bank/DFID/UN/GIZ, existing policies, legal, regulatory and institutional reforms at the federal and provincial levels. This will also include a review of the SMEA Market Led Sector Analysis report, SMEA BEE Policy Analysis, SMEA Emerging Sector Analysis and Year 2.5 extension workplan.
• Conduct /a short BEE Analysis covering the following;

a.       Situation Analysis: A diagnostic highlighting the policy, regulatory and institutional bottlenecks for SMEs in KP-NMDs. Identify how the investment and business related regulations, policies and laws are being extended to the NMDs, that is, if at all being implemented in practice and where are the key constraints that impact businesses. A list of key BEE issues hampering competitiveness and growth in sectors (as listed in the section below), including an analysis of policy, regulatory, legal and/or institutional barriers which are most likely, if eliminated, to enhance competitiveness of SMEs

b.      Stakeholder Analysis: Identify and develop a list of key stakeholders including but not limited to relevant public and private sector entities/organizations, chambers of commerce, relevant trade associations, government and private sector institutional facilitators, financial institutions, business leaders, academic partners, and other donor projects etc.  currently active in the NMDs. Identify any change agents, influencers and champions of reform in the process.

• Develop a Gap-Opportunity Matrix on the basis of above to identify the areas for interventions (policy, regulatory and institutional) in the context of BEE. The Gap analysis should relate to the doing business requirements of the KP Board of Investment and also cover the cross cutting themes pertaining to the Doing Business indicators of the World Bank  (i) business registration, (ii) contract enforcement, (iii) alternate dispute resolution, (iv) business licensing / permits, where appropriate, (v) property registration and land titling, (vi) dealing with construction permits, (vii) closing a business, (viii) getting credit. State what is working well, what is not working well and what needs to change for the NMDs SMEs to flourish.
• The above noted analyses must also take into account the varied constraints and potential opportunities for women-led businesses.
• Conduct secondary research to identify economic sectors in the NMDs where there are small and micro enterprises present. This analysis should follow a tiered approach where the following are given preference in descending order of importance:
  • SMEA approved sectors of ICT, Hospitality (Tourism and others), Agri Business & Processing, Textile, Light Engineering, Logistics and Minerals
  • Other sectors in the NMDs that have a large number of SMEs present
  • Geographic mapping of these sectors along with research on the estimated number of SMEs in each, labor employed and their products and/or services.
  • The major markets for these sectors and how the SMEs are currently accessing these markets (directly, through intermediaries or only selling locally in their own vicinity)
  • Major challenges faced by the SMEs in these regions with a focus on firm level impediments such as access to markets, skills, formal sources of finance and technology
  • Identification of sectors where Women Led Businesses are present, how these are currently organized (if at all) and how they can be engaged with
  • Identification of sectors where there is youth employment and also potential for youth employment in SMEs
  • Analysis of ICT tools can be used to improve market access for SMEs in these sectors increasing their reach from either their current locality, to economic hubs of KP or beyond to the rest of the country
  • Mapping of the current ICT infrastructure in NMDs in terms of availability of high speed internet either through broadband or mobile network operator provided 4G services
  • Sector profiles for those sectors shortlisted from those identified in the initial scan including information on:
    • Number of SMEs, prominent sub-sectors, geographic spread, production, employment, labor productivity, availability of raw materials and intermediate goods, manufacturing capabilities and HR skills, job creation, export, GDP contribution, exports, female and youth participation, profitability and products/services.
    • Help in planning a private and public sector stakeholder engagement and consultation session to share findings of the assessment and engage with crucial stakeholders for the promotion of SMEA’s work in the region.

Job Qualifications

Duration of the Assignment:

This assignment is planned to take place as per a start date of on or around July 10, 2019 (depending on the date of mobilization of the consultants), and end date of on or around October 31, 2019, spread over a period of 3 months, for a total of 54 person days level of effort (LOE), as distributed among the team (in the table above).

Deliverables:

The following are the key deliverables and their associated deadlines. The LOE assigned for each activity as mentioned in the following table will be discussed and agreed with the technical team and the consultants. The final deliverable of this assignment is the final report on “Rapid Assessment and Opportunity Index for the NMDs in KP.”