International Consultant and a Vietnamese Consultant to Carry Out an Appraisal/Further Study for Three Above Options or Any other Initiatives Agreed by the Consultants and ECCODE Team

CARE in Vietnam is a Non-Government Organisation representing the CARE International network. CARE in Vietnam is a creative and dynamic organisation, working with Vietnamese partners in the sectors of health, rural development and disaster mitigation and preparedness.

The Thai Nguyen Women’s economic collaboration for development (ECCODE) project is funded by EU and CARE Denmark. The overall objective of project is “To contribute to poverty reduction for the rural population of Thai Nguyen province by ensuring access to economic resources and influence over decisions that affect their lives”. 

The specific objective of project is: “12,000 poor women and men in eight communes in Thai Nguyen province have improved their income and influence on economic decision-making through membership of rural cooperation groups”.

The project adopts and promotes market-based and demand-based approaches to service delivery. This entails raising incomes through promotion of value chain and market-based transactions and activities by the beneficiaries rather than direct support from the project. As clearly indicated in the project document, to enable poor farmers to have improvement of their production, improve access to sustainable financial resource is essential. Following market based approach; however, direct provision of credit by the project is discouraged, by several initial studies, which showed that substantial credit is already available to many rural households. These include subsidised credit lines based on state policy lending as well as collateralised credit at market terms. However, it was also found that there are still needs to fill gaps in credit allocation, particularly among the poor and landless who cannot use land certificates as collateral. The project will thus provide modest additional credit funds which will be earmarked for beneficiaries who are excluded from existing credit systems.

In line with this approach, several study and discussion were taken in by ECCODE project team and local partners/stakeholders such as WU, CA, local policy Bank to get information and development of new credit product.

As results of these works, there three initial options are proposed:
- Option 1: ECCODE Project will support and work with Policy Bank in Dinh Hoa district to pilot a model of “Standard transaction shops” in 8 communes of Dinh Hoa district and further replication to all other communes in the district as well as larger scale if possible.
- Option 2: ECCODE Project will support Thai Nguyen Women’s Union to establish a Micro Finance institution and pilot in Dinh Hoa district before replicating in other districts of Thai Nguyen.
    * Option 3: ECCODE project will have further study for any other opportunities such as People Credit Fund, support Thai Nguyen CA for developing their Cooperative Alliance Fund, etc.    

ECCODE is looking for an international consultant and a Vietnamese consultant to carry out an appraisal/further study for three above options or any other initiatives agreed by the consultants and ECCODE team.

The Objectives of the work is to further study/assess the feasibility of 3 above options and develop credit model/s and action plan for rolling out these model/s inline with project approach including sustainable access of poor farmers to the financial resources and market-based principle.

The consultant should have relevant experience in Finance/Banking/credit or relevant topics, sound knowledge and experiences on rural development including credit/banking institutions in Vietnam. For international consultant, who is existing based/available in Vietnam is preferable. 

Depending on the availability of the consultants and time schedule of the project plan, specific time for the assignment will be decided but it is expected to carry out in May 2010 with about 15-20 days for each consultant. The application should be sent (preference by email) before 4 May, 2010 to email: [email protected]

The draft of TOR will get from human resource session by sending email to the same address [email protected]

Only short-listed applicants will be contacted for interviews.

 

Job Details
Organisation Name: 
CARE in Vietnam
Location: 
Thai Nguyen province
Application Deadline: 
Tue, 2010-05-04