A research done by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation reveals how the world stepped up to prevent worst-case scenarios from happening and the need for long-term investments to ensure an equitable recovery and continued progress toward the Global Goals.
The findings of the research were announced at the fifth annual Goalkeepers Report organized by the company. It features an updated global dataset illustrating the pandemic’s adverse impact on progress toward the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (Global Goals).
According to the findings, those who have been hit the hardest due to the pandemic will likely be the slowest to recover from it. Because of COVID-19, an additional 31 million people were pushed into extreme poverty in 2020 compared to 2019. And while 90% of advanced economies will regain pre-pandemic per capita income levels by next year, only a third of low- and middle-income economies are expected to do so.
Fortunately, the world stepped up to avert some of the worst-case scenarios. This is a contrast to last year’s predicted drop of 14 percentage points in global vaccine coverage effectively erasing 25 years of progress in 25 weeks. New analysis from IHME demonstrates that the decline, while still unacceptable, was only half of what was anticipated.
Co-chairs of the research have highlighted the “breathtaking innovation” that was only possible due to global collaboration, commitment, and investments over decades. They acknowledge that averting the worst-case scenarios is commendable, yet they note it’s not enough.
Another issue brought to light was the economic impact that the pandemic has had on women globally. In both high and low income countries, women were affected more than men.
“Women face structural barriers in every corner of the world, leaving them more vulnerable to the impacts of the pandemic,” said co-chair Melinda Gates. She also emphasized the need to invest in women now to address inequities as well as their responsibilities governments have to spur a more equitable recovery while strengthening their economies against future crises.
As vaccines continue to be administered to millions around the globe, the report illustrates how decades of investment, policies, and partnerships enabled the speed of vaccines to begin being rollouts. However, the systems that allowed for the unprecedented development and deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine exist primarily in wealthy countries, and as a result, has not benefited all countries equally.
“The lack of equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines is a public health tragedy,” said Bill Gates. He added that the world will face very real risks in the future if wealthy countries and communities begin to treat the pandemic as another disease of poverty. “We can’t put the pandemic behind us until everyone, regardless of where they live, has access to vaccines.”
More than 80% of all COVID-19 vaccines have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries to date, with some securing two to three times the number needed so they can cover boosters. In low-income countries however, that number drops to less than 1%. Africa, although is home to 17% of the world’s population, has less than 1% of the world’s vaccine manufacturing capabilities.
“We must invest in local partners to strengthen the capacity of researchers and manufacturers in lower income countries to create the vaccines and medicines they need,” said Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman. “The only way we will solve our greatest health challenges is by drawing on the innovation and talent of people all over the world.”
Report finds stark disparities in COVID-19 impacts
Ethiopian Minister of State oversees the arrival of ‘Lucy’ at the Ethiopia Pavilion at Expo 2020 Dubai
Believed to be the origin of humankind, Ethiopia will spotlight Lucy, the oldest human fossil ever discovered and a major discovery in the country’s history, at Expo 2020 Dubai.
The master cast, which is the star attraction within the Ethiopia Pavilion, reinforces the country’s excellent bilateral relations with the UAE Government, and the cooperation and collaboration of its participation in the first World Expo ever held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia.
At 3.2-million-years-old, Lucy – locally named “Dinknesh” meaning ‘you are amazing’ in Amharic language – is believed to be the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor ever found after being discovered in the most north-eastern part of Ethiopia in 1974.
Overseeing her installation at the centre of the Ethiopia Pavilion on 26 August was a group of high-level delegates, led by His Excellency Ambassador Misganu Arga, State Minister of Trade & Industry, and Commissioner General of Ethiopia at Expo 2020 Dubai.
Lucy will be exhibited in the Ethiopia Pavilion for the 182 days of Expo, providing visitors with an opportunity to meet and greet their oldest ever ancestor.
Ethiopia is as old as time itself. Humanity started there. As the only sub-Saharan African country never to be colonised, it has successfully maintained its originality, culture and values – all factors that guide it today.
The country led efforts to decolonise Africa to empower the continent and is today a living hub – driving and facilitating connections between the continent and the world. These connections are deep-rooted, formed from the beginning and nurtured through a united vision and good leadership.
VACANCY ANNOUNCEMENT FOR SENIOR MANAGER CLIENTS AND PROFESSIONAL SERVICES
HST is a knowledge company that provides services for clients across various industries.
HST endeavors to solve its clients’ business growth, operational, people, financial, tax, governance, risk, learning and compliance challenges with locally relevant solutions. As a local professional service firm, HST offers best practices that fully consider its clients’ unique circumstances and the social, political and economic environment in which they are operating.
HST is powered by highly qualified and best in class multi-disciplinary professionals in strategy, human capital, audit, corporate finance, enterprise risk, technology, education, tax and outsourcing. The firm’s professionals are supported by up-to-date knowledge and modern technology specifically tailored to the Ethiopian business environment to provide solutions to clients’ issues that matters most.
HST is looking for a career oriented, self-motivated and resilient professional who would like to contribute to the firm’s professional services thought leadership, engagement with existing and prospective clients, performance management and operational excellence and related areas as a consultant.
Position – Senior Manager Clients and Professional Services
Mission: Energetic and intuitive marketing strategist with exceptional leadership and communication skills. Proven ability to identify opportunities and deliver effective strategies to generate results. Experienced in strategic marketing planning, and branding development. Adept in online and traditional marketing, and highly skilled in visual communications.
The Senior Clients and Professional Services Manager is responsible for driving the success of services & brand promise in the marketplace. This person is expected to carry out the following:
Online – Improve lead-nurturing scoring across all online activities by implementing interactive web forms and targeting innovative content messaging.
Market Research – Analyze potential opportunities through market research to support marketing and business development activities including competitor monitoring and liaison with industry contacts.
Project Management – Collaborate with outside marketing and communication professionals on standardization, design and production of marketing materials.
KPI – Generate weekly KPI reporting including campaign effectiveness and pipeline contribution.
SEO – Manage SEO / SEM strategies and tactics with external agency, increasing site traffic from time to time.
Business Development – Provide business development and cross-marketing initiatives that include market/industry research, evaluation of opportunities and development of strategies for market/industry penetration Content Marketing- Direct all marketing operations for customer acquisition, automation systems and content marketing.
Customer Service – Support the firm’s brand goals in collaboration with strategy business unit leaders and executive management.
Analytics – Leverage results of analytics in process improvement initiatives and proactively recommended improvements to increase efficiency and effectiveness of marketing programs.
Product Management – Work with strategy business unit leaders and teams to provide input for next generation product /service development.
Customer Acquisition – Develop and implement strategic customer acquisition plans and offers, competitive intelligence analyses, and High Value Customer Care program
Required Skills / Special Qualifications
- Creative and strategic thinker, excellent listener and communicator
- Analytical skills
- Technical skills which include:
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- Technology proficiency
- Writing and content creation
- Digital advertising
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization); Social media
- E-mail marketing/marketing automation
- PR/media relation
- Traditional advertising
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- Master’s degree or equivalent in Marketing, Sales or Applied Economics
- Over 8 years of Experience in Senior Marketing and Sales Position
Submission of Application
Applicants who fulfill the above qualification can send their application and required credentials by posting to the firm’s recruitment site: www.hst-recruit.com or submit their application in person to the Human Resources Officer at Wollo Sefer, Mina Building, 5th Floor until 30th September 2021. Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for next stage evaluation.
Request for Proposal to develop a five-year strategic plan to Oromia Credit and Saving Share Company (OCSSCO) transitioning to Siinqii Bank
BACKGROUND
For companies to grow and prosper, planning is an important process that guides from where the company is right now to where it wants to be in the future. The dynamism nature of the business environment is pausing business to step back and think strategically on how to cope up with the everchanging business dynamics and proactively surpass any hurdles that may encounter on the way. As competition in any business environment is becoming stiff, planning strategically is the key that will for sure help any business ensure their exitance and prosperity and hence companies must have strategic plan for each of their respective business that is realistic, measurable and achievable.
Strategic planning is important to an organization because it provides a sense of direction and outlines measurable goals. Strategic planning is a tool that is useful for guiding day-to-day decisions and also for evaluating progress and changing approaches when moving forward. In order to make the most of strategic planning, the company should give careful thought to the strategic objectives it outlines, and then back up these goals with realistic, thoroughly researched, quantifiable benchmarks for evaluating results.
The financial sector in Ethiopia is growing although as the pace that is not as expected. It is inevitable for the companies to develop and have a road map that clearly indicates and be measured for taking the company to the next level. Financial institutions play a critical role in economic development and job creation. The most productive youth force is currently facing lack of access to finance which mainly is attributed not targeting the youth in their strategies.
BRIDGES PROGRAMME
First Consult (FC)/Development Alternative Inc (DAI) is contracted to provide management and technical support services to Mastercard Foundation under the BRIDGES programme to support the creation of close to 600,000 youth jobs (80% women) and 15,000 MSMEs, with 300,000 unemployed youth trained through supporting IP job creation initiative and market linkage between IPs and MSMEs.
The BRIDGES Programme will address two fundamental, immediate and complementary challenges to unlock the potential for job creation within IPs and their surrounding ecosystem. (1) Making the industrial workforce markets work, which through the Enterprise Partners Programme, First Consult/DAI have successfully piloted in a few industrial parks and is now ripe for scale-up. (2) Making the IP business linkages (MSME) markets work to enhance domestic manufacturing value-added (MVA) for every given dollar of export. This will be done by substituting the currently-heavy import-dependent operations – itself a constraint on the factories – via local suppliers (MSMEs) in a number of ways.
The Government of Ethiopia recognizes the critical role played by Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs) in creating job opportunities especially for young people and women, as well as for boosting national income and wealth that is important in igniting industrial transformation and private sector development. This is also well articulated in the Growth and Transformation Plan which prioritizes and identifies the development of micro and small businesses as catalyst for promoting industrial development. However, issues such as A2F, premises, market and linkage issues remain a challenge. To address the aforementioned the A2F issue, BRIDGES Programme partners with many Financial Institutions (FIs) to ensure that FIs received the necessary Technical Assistances that will enable the FIs to cater the wider group of MSMEs that are youth focused. One of BRIDGES programme partner is Oromia Credit and Saving Share Company (OCSSCO) which now transitioning to Bank which BRIDGES aims to support the institution by providing technical assistances such as trainings, preparation of strategic plan, enterprise development etc that to enable MSME development, job creation and access to finance to the young men and women.
Oromia Credit and Saving Share Company (OCSSCO)
Oromia Credit and Saving Share Company (OCSSCO) within its 24 years of operation and services, had prepared four medium term (five years) Strategic Business Plan (SBP) documents to lead its growth through deliberate roadmap.
On 24th May 2021, OCSSCO was given permission to transform to Siinqee Bank to provide both the microfinance and banking services and is currently under licensing process. Therefore, it is mandatory to have appropriate Strategic Business Plan (SBP) to carry out the intended businesses through strategic roadmap.
For Siinqee Bank, the fundamental decision to develop new strategic plan were emanated from both from internal & external factors. The internal force was the demands of major re-examination of the current growth attained. For the last few four years, the existing growth or progress hasn’t been showing satisfactory progress. The existing growth is almost increasing at a minor progress with all aspects.
The other internal force is the acquisition of technology ‘core banking system’ which initiates the reappraisal of OCSSCO to transfer to banking business to carry out the business in modern way so as to be competent in the market and compatible with the fast-changing business environments.
The outside force was from the interest of regional and federal governments. The financial sector in Ethiopia is growing although as the pace that is not as expected. The interest of regional and federal governments to increase the number of financial institutions so as to realize the intended financial inclusion (the availability and equality of opportunities to access financial services by which individuals and businesses can access appropriate, affordable, and timely financial products and services) in the region and as well as in the country.
OBJECTIVE
The objective of this assignment is to assist one of the BRIDGES programme partners Oromia Credit and Saving Share Company (OCSSCO) now transitioning to Siinqii Bank develop its first five years Strategic Plan (2022-2026). The main objective for supporting OCSSCO is mainly facilitate MSME development, job creation and creating access to finance access to finance. OCSSCO is under the process of transitioning to Siinqii Bank and the new strategic business plan must take in to account both the MFI and Bank operations of the institution.
SCOPES
The scope of the study is expected to conduct all pertinent assessments both internal and external environments. Internally, it should try to assess all internal stakeholders, fundamental Issues (Mission, Vision and Values), institutional profile, governance, the current organizational structure, each working units at all layers. Externally, it should conduct survey on global economy and banking industry, nationally, macro and micro-environments analysis, competition & competitors’, collaborators, market and marketing and customers’ analysis in general.
SPECIFIC TASK
The firm will be responsible:
- Review the existing Strategic plan (OCSSCO 4th SBP), vision and mission statements, values and develop SBP which integrates microfinance services and banking business);
- Undertake stakeholder analysis and other analysis listed under scope of the intended SBP;
- Through a consultative process and application of an appropriate tool of analysis, identify focus areas and develop strategic objectives and key result areas for the same;
- Review the institutional capacity, organizational set-up, financial and administrative systems against the TA mandate and the identified strategic objectives and key result areas; and make recommendations, if any;
- Activities in the development of a five-years Strategic Plan with emphasis on roles and responsibilities
- Review all relevant primary data supportive to the strategic plan development;
- Conduct deep environmental scanning to identify themes and key issues that will become strategic drivers for the next five years;
- Indicative contents may include in executive summary, SWOT, KPIs, Target Customers and products, Industry Analysis, Marketing and new product development plans, HR and development plans, Operation plans, Financial projections, Technology (core-banking, E-payment), Indicators and time frame.
- Propose appropriate strategies for achieving the strategic objectives and key results;
- Develop a Results and Resources Framework for the plan period;
- Hold stakeholder meeting(s) to validate the draft Strategic Plan;
- Finally, based on findings of each phase, the consultants will triangulate information from the various strategy development processes and presentation with wider stakeholders and prepare the final draft.
- Finalize Strategic plan and submit
- Any other tasks to be determined;
DELIVERABLES
The following reports will be required as deliverables:
- An inception report that outlines how it will accomplish the consultancy objective, specific methodology and work plan, Staffing and management, work plan: detailed timeline of activities and meetings, outline of the table of content, deliverables.
- Draft report The report is expected to address the specific deliverables in specific activity section. Presentation is required at this stage.
- Final report
- Power point presentation out of the final report
QUALIFICATION
Firm experience of at least 10 years, that specialized in providing strategic consulting services especially to the financial sector players.
This advisory service requires three consultants for successful delivery of the 5 years strategic plan. The following qualifications are required:
- One key senior expert with management, finance and or economics background with more than 10 years of high-level advisory experience preferably with financial sector background (Minimum Master Degree)
- One Senior consultant with MFI expertise and a background of advisory services to MFIs and or previous working experience (Minimum Master Degree)
- One data analyst as a support for data analytics
WORKING ARRANGEMENT
Siinqee Bank will assign Senior Personnel to assist the development process and for any information. The MFI senior management will be involved through out the process of the engagement.
Documents
In response to this TOR, qualified companies should submit both technical (maximum 10 pages, CVs could be annexed) and financial proposals (Maximum 3 pages) in the following structure:
Technical Proposal Structure
- Organization Track Record and Relevant Experience
- Description of Technical Approach, Methodology, and Work Plan for Performing the Assignment
- Team Composition, Assignment, and Key Experts CV’s
Financial Proposal
The firm should submit the total budget in the proposal with detail breakdown including applicable government taxes. All costs should be stated in ETB. Professional fees should be delineated to person-days.
Clarification/ Contact person
For any clarification, please contact Henok Tenna at htenna@firstconsultet.com or telephone +251 912 038 560
Submission of the proposal
The Offer or shall prepare both the “Technical” and “Financial” Proposal to the following email address bids4@firstconsultet.com
Deadline for submission of proposals
Applicants should email their proposal (technical and financial) to bids4@firstconsultet.com with the relevant information detailed in technical and financial section of a proposal. The subject of the email should say Strategic Planning Development, BRIDGES Project. Proposals must be received no later than 5 PM on 03 October 2021.
