Position Title: Consultant (Public Procurement for Women’s Economic Empowerment)
No of Position: 01
Work association: Director-Strategic Partnerships & Systems & Director-Knowledge Management
Location: Delhi (Consultant may be required to travel to prospective project locations as per need)
Duration: 30 days for a total 6 months
Project Overview
In India, government procurement constitutes above 20 percent of the GDP ~ $500 billion. In fact, India is among the large emerging economies where procurement by the government accounts for over 20% of the GDP. Since 2018, the provisions under Government of India (GoI) mandate public buyers to procure at least 25% of their annual procurement of goods from Micro & Small Enterprises (MSEs). With a view to providing support to the MSEs, a range of benefits are provided through issuance of tender document at zero cost, exemption from Earnest Money Deposit requirements and reservation of 358 items for exclusive procurement from MSEs. There has been a gradual increase in the share of MSEs in gross public procurement in the past four years barring Financial Year 2021.
However, in the public procurement (PP) of goods and services in India, community-based institutions – including women’s Self-Help Groups and their federations – have largely remained excluded and have not had the opportunity to create wealth for the rural poor through entrepreneurship. One of the reasons for this could be that there is a scarcity of evidence to demonstrate that viable models managed by community-based institutions exist and are successful in catering to the requirements of the State adequately and efficiently at scale. PCI proposes to provide techno-managerial support to address this evidence gap.
The project through its investment aims to contribute to the goals under GE BoW, Connect women with marketplaces and work opportunities. With many existing models to draw from, PCI believes that there is a need for dedicated technical assistance (TA) at the national level and to selected State Missions to focus on creating a conducive policy environment for gender-lensed public procurement, documenting best practices across the country and enabling Public Procurement models to be taken to scale across states.
This TA unit will engage directly with select BMGF-priority SRLMs to support them in providing technical capacity building. As part of this engagement, the TA will undertake capacity assessment of 5 SRLMs for promoting Women-Led Enterprises (WLEs), identification of potential Cluster Level Federations (CLFs) for seeding a business and examine various forms of engagement of WLEs in public procurement – for example, aggregation of CLFs for harnessing economies of scale – and produce relevant knowledge products.
This TA can also potentially engage with various other enterprise/business development support (BDS) for SHGs and their federations. The TA will also engage with other state departments to identify potential opportunities for public procurement linkages in order to expand markets and increase livelihoods opportunities for SHG members. Based on success and evidence, this engagement can be replicated in other states and scaled up with the support of NRLM. The proposed investment also aspires to build on the investment made towards promoting model federations. These model federations would be prioritized to work on the public procurement opportunities due to their relatively better abilities to manage and deliver on such opportunities.
Scope of the Assignment:
- Guide the project in nationwide landscaping of the public procurement opportunities for WEE, including an assessment of public procurement policies of various states and budgets dedicated by state governments for procuring goods and services exclusively from women’s groups.
- Detailed discussions with PCI team to understand the project, its development objectives, implementation strategies around Women-managed public procurement projects for WEE and support in developing/revisiting/modifying the activity plan by envisioning the project outcomes.
- Support and guide in undertaking desk reviews through discussions on similar projects managed by community institutions in other SRLMs; reviewing their guidelines and reports and documents, wherever available.
- Support and guide in outlining the public procurement playbook for the project
- Undertaking risk assessments and SWOT analysis for supporting the organisation develop new prototypes and models for SRLMs
- Support and guide the team in network building and pitching the project in NRLM and other SRLMs.
The Methodology followed to undertake these would primarily be discussions with PCI team.
Expected Output:
The Consultant is expected to submit a Final Report highlighting the key elements of nationwide landscaping of public procurement projects reviewed by PCI, outline of the playbook which would support in scalability of existing public procurement projects and risk assessments, which would enable and support the organisation in designing new prototypes & models for SRLMs to introduce WEE projects on public procurement.
Duration of the Assignment:
The Consultant is expected to complete the work on the above assignment within a period of 30 days, stretched over a maximum of 6 months, starting from 1st of October,2022.
Experience & Expertise required:
- The Consultant should hold a PG degree in Management or related fields from premier institute with a minimum of 10 years of work experience.
- Experience as a research consultant in the field of rural development, projects of Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE) would be an advantage, however, freshers are also encouraged to apply.
- Hands-on experience on policy analysis and project implementation related to Women
- Experience of conducting reviews of secondary literature, feasibility studies and risk assessments and use of enquiry tools such as in-depth interviews, and group discussions
- Excellent knowledge of WEE projects run by Govt. of Bihar, World bank and others.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English.
- Ability to deliver detailed analytical report and frameworks for guiding the projects deliverables.
- Experience of having undertaken at least one similar assignment in Bihar or familiarity with Bihar context will be given preference
APPLICATION PROCESS
Interested candidates can apply for the position of Consultant (Public Procurement for Women’s Economic Empowerment) by 9th September,2022,5:00 pm.
PCI India is an equal opportunity provider and does not discriminate based on race, colour, religion (creed),
gender, gender expression, age, national origin (ancestry), disability and/or marital status. Due to the heavy
inflow of resumes, only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Female candidates are encouraged to apply