STTA - Special Initiative
Manager - Business Enabling
Environment Component

World over, evidence suggests that ease of doing business is a wider concept, rooted in the policy, regulatory, legislative, procedural, and institutional business environment which surrounds a business. In reality, the BEE in Pakistan like globally, is shaped by both formal and informal rules, procedures, regulation and their enforcement. The existing set of indices that exist to assess the business environment identify broader issues, and they do not depict the issues faced by real SMEs in the economy – primarily the size effect and that these do not capture the informal practices. In light of this, SMEA is developing a customized BEE index to set a national level comparable benchmark for ease of doing business in Pakistan. To support the process, a dedicated relatively senior level resource is required that not only has policy and institutional development experience but has substantial experience of engaging directly with businesses in field to have the exposure of local norms and ways in which businesses are conducted. The consultant will provide the expertise and support to BEE team to review the index from a practitioner’s perspective and ensure that the outputs and analysis are comprehensive enough to develop policy interventions. This is important to ensure that the index is seen to be a useful tool and will be sustained by policy makers. Additionally, the index will have to be presented by SMEA to various government counterparts to generate interest and develop ownership for adoption.  The consultant will be required to generate interest in the Government and to build its understanding around the BEE index, the Federal and Provincial Industries Department and outfits such as the Punjab Small Industries Corporation, other similar provincial entities, SMEDA , thereby present the index at multiple forums and make a business case for a viable government entity to adopt and scale-up for sustainability beyond SMEA.

1.     Position Title & Department:

Special Initiative Manager- Business Enabling Environment Component.

2.     General Summary: 

Chemonics International is implementing Pakistan Small and Medium Enterprise Activity (SMEA), which is a 5-year, $35 million project that is aimed at improvement of financial and operating performance of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Pakistan in selected high-performing industrial, manufacturing and services sectors. Creating an enabling business environment is one of the objectives of SMEA. USAID SMEA is the process of engaging a specialized institution (a  research organization with technical and data collection expertise) that can help in developing and piloting a customized Business Enabling Environment (BEE) Index for SMEs in Pakistan. As part of this subcontract, an effort will be made to develop a BEE index for SMEs ( representative of geographical diversity by gathering information from SMEs across Pakistan in particular Karachi, Hyderabad, Lahore, Gujranwala, Sialkot, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta) , with a pilot done in a suitable region perhaps in the golden triangle region of Punjab or could be done in the 4-5 most populated SME clusters of Punjab to assess the actual cost and ease of doing business for small and medium sector.  The sub-contractor will be designing the methodology for a representative index and only pilot to see what sort of results come. The design will give a full methodology including what will be a national representative sample and one that can also be used to make city level analysis. 

3.     Objective of the Consultancy: 

• Meet with SMEA BEE team to understand the tasks relevant to this scope of work
• Meet with the sub-contractor hired for development of BEE index.
• Provide inputs, feedback and technical guidance in cooperation with the BEE team of SMEA throughout the development of the Index.
• Meet and interact with entities such as SMEDA, Planning and Development Departments, provincial outfits such as Punjab Small Industries Corporation etc. to generate interest and demonstrate value in using the BEE index for policy interventions
• Undertake necessary advocacy governments with the BEE team for presenting the index at multiple forums and make a business case for a viable government entity to adopt and scale-up for sustainability beyond SMEA.                                                      

5.     Specific Tasks of the consultants:

• Work with SMEA M&E team as a focal point for coordinating, and facilitating collection of data for reporting on USAID CDCS indicators
• Support the SMEA team evaluate the technical proposals to ensure the interested parties have covered all the relevant details in the technical methodology
• During implementation will support the SMEA team in ensuring quality of the deliverables including but not limited to the following:
  • the design of the indicators, the clustering of indicators. Weighting methodology, sample selection, statistical attributes, data coding methodology with unique identifiers, relevance and comparability of the index, its sustainability overtime, estimation techniques, error correction methodology and similar other aspects.
  • Work with SMEA and the contractor to ensure output analysis and reporting is consistent, replicable and useful for both policy making and highlighting the issues by the sector.
  • Help SMES present the index and its results to a wider set of audience including public and private sector and develop ownership and understanding of the index and its utility.
  • Support SMEA is finding a technical home for sustainability of the index.

6.  Job Qualifications

7. Duty Station:

The consultant will be based in Islamabad and will be working closely with the BEE team. 

8. Workspace and Use of Personal Laptop and Software(s):

The consultant will be required to use his own personal laptop and must certify that all software used are genuine and licensed; to ensure that the project’s IT resources are protected from accidental destruction or deliberate attempts at sabotage by computer viruses and other hazards. 

9. Reporting: 

The consultant(s) will be required to report to BEE Deputy Component Lead, and/or her designee. 

10. Duration of the Assignment:

This will be an intermittent effort of 45 days of LOE spread over a period of 6 months (longer than the duration of the BEE Index assignment). This job is planned to take place as per a start date of on or around January 01, 2021 and end date of on or around June 30, 2021. 

11. Deliverables:

The timeline for the LOE assigned for each activity as mentioned in the following table will be discussed and agreed with SMEA technical team and the consultant: