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CARE International is a leading global humanitarian and development organization. Since its establishment in 2005, CARE International in Pakistan (CIP) has been responding to major disasters and undertaking an array of development projects. CIP works through its local partners and a range of stakeholders for development, as well as emergency response related interventions, which makes collaboration a key component of its work, across the country. Health, governance and education, with particular focus on economic empowerment, are CARE’s core identified program areas in Pakistan.

Background – Ignite Financial Inclusion Project

The purpose of this project is to facilitate access to financial services and business development skills for Pakistani entrepreneurs especially women, thereby positively strengthen Pakistan’s economy, in line with the Government of Pakistan’s national development objectives, the National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) and the focus of the government to encourage entrepreneurship and digitization in the country. The project is a 3 years’ program aimed to enhance to access to finance for entrepreneurs through partnership with Financial Service Providers (FSPs), encourage them to adopt digital wallets and digital business mechanisms whilst building their capacity to be better able to access information, create linkages and grow their businesses. The project will be implemented in districts of Punjab (Gujranwala, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi) and Sindh (Karachi and Hyderabad) aiming to reach out to 45,150 entrepreneurs. Additional districts may be added in consultation with the firm. The current project is being implemented in three countries and the assignment will be based on the unified assessment framework developed for the 3 project countries at the global level.

Objective of Consultancy:

A key component of the Ignite Financial Inclusion Project is the Market Assessment. The aim of the market assessment is to assess the challenges faced by Strivers[1], to understand their constraints in accessing financial products, the viability of the current financial products available and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis on their businesses. Moreover, the assessment also aims to gauge the financial product needs and challenges faced by those Strivers who have not obtained or have been unsuccessful in their efforts to obtain a financial product to grow their business. The aim is to conduct the market assessment through a combination of qualitative and quantitative survey tools.

Following is a snapshot of the objectives of the assessment:

  • Understand the challenges being faced by the Strivers in terms of their existing skillset (marketing, operations, financial management, linkages, access to information and sources, enrolment in training programs, access to social media, challenges in scaling up their enterprises etc.)
  • Understand the challenges faced by women Strivers in terms of access to finance, challenges, opportunities whilst also looking into factors that inhibit women from become entrepreneurs
  • Understand the challenges being faced by the Strivers especially women in growing their business in terms of the types of financial products available, their needs and requirements?
  • The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic crisis, the challenges and opportunities for the Strivers (what is required for the business now- digital mechanisms? Financial literacy? Additional training required? Business focus- growth or continuity?)
  • Understand how the Strivers especially women access information, what mediums have been useful for them

Further detail can be found in the attached TORs.

In case of queries contact at [email protected]