Context:
UNCDF is the UN’s capital investment agency for the world’s least developed countries.  UNCDF has a unique financial mandate within the UN system. It provides investment capital and technical support to both the public and the private sector. The ability to provide capital financing — in the forms of grants, soft loans and credit enhancement – and the technical expertise in preparing portfolios of sustainable and resilient capacity building and infrastructure projects, makes its mandate a very useful complement to the mandates of other UN agencies. It also positions UNCDF as an early-stage investor to de-risk opportunities that can later be scaled up by institutional financial partners and increasingly by philanthropic foundations and private sector investors.

MM4P

With support from Australian Government, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (“DFAT” formerly AusAid) and by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), UNCDF launched MM4P in March 2012, a global thematic initiative to address the opportunities and challenges of implementing branchless banking and mobile money in challenging markets in Africa and Asia. MM4P’s long-term mission is to help low income and rural households in LDCs increase their financial security through appropriate, affordable and secure means to receive, manage and save money through these “digital financial services” (DFS). 

In partnership and with financing from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), UNCDF is implementing an “ecosystem support” programme in Uganda to hasten the scalability of digital finance (DF), particularly in rural areas.  This includes a high level of training, technical assistance and grants to financial service providers, agent networks, bulk payers, aggregators and the government of Uganda.

Based on MM4P’s Theory of Change, UNCDF’s objective is to help and hasten the shift of the Ugandan digital finance market from expansion stage until they are firmly in the consolidation stage.  The objective at the end of 2019 is to reach at least 50% of the adult population actively using digital finance (90 days).

Objectives:
As part of the extension of its program in Uganda, UNCDF is looking for a project management consultant based in Kampala, Uganda from 1 April to 31 December 2017.  Under the direct responsibility of the Country Technical Specialist (CTS), the Project Management Consultant works with the project support consultant and will have the responsibility of expediting the processing of technical and financial assistance projects the different phases of the programme cycle (selection, design, approvals, implementation and evaluation). The short-term outcome of this role is for the MM4P Uganda team to be able to design projects and conduct quality assurance on documents to a standard that allows projects to be approved by MM4P´s investment committee with minimum oversight by 15 May 2017. This means that PMU Brussels will stop committing resources in the project design phase by this date and that MM4P Uganda will have systems and resource arrangements allowing them to be fully functional by the mentioned date. The project management consultant also acts as liaison with the Programme Management Unit (PMU) team in Brussels to arrange the necessary project approvals and provide regular updates.