Business Development Advisor at GIZ Rwanda: (Deadline 29 January 2024)

Business Development Advisor at GIZ Rwanda: (Deadline 29 January 2024)

Vacancy Announcement

Business Development Advisor for Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE)

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH is a federally owned international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations. The GIZ Office in Kigali covers GIZ’s portfolio in Rwanda and Burundi. GIZ Rwanda/Burundi implements projects on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union and other commissioning authorities in the following priority areas: Sustainable Economic Development; Good Governance; Climate, Energy and Sustainable Urban Development; Digital Transformation and Digital Economy; and regional projects in the Great Lakes Region.

The project “Promoting Women’s Economic Empowerment” (WEE) is part of the “Sustainable Economic Development” priority area. The project aims to strengthen the economic participation of women in Rwanda and operates in the following areas of activity: (1) Improvement of working conditions for female employees, (2) Enhancement of competitiveness, including the export capabilities of women-led companies. The WEE project is commissioned by BMZ and implemented by GIZ in cooperation with the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MINICOM) of Rwanda.

In the area of enhancement of competitiveness, including the export capabilities of women-led companies, the WEE project supports women-led companies enhance their competitiveness. There is a focus on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), as most female-led enterprises are in this segment. A call for expression of interest is planned to select beneficiaries amongst the target group, based on pre-defined criteria in line with the project objective and targets. Beneficiaries will receive a range of needs-based counselling aimed at improving their competitiveness on local and international markets, for example related to: managerial and procedural issues, product development, innovation in production processes, and product or sustainability certification. If interested, they can be advised on the introduction of gender diversity management elements. The approach combines measures that promote gender equality in companies with measures that increase their competitiveness. The project will work with relevant state and non-state actors and leverage existing initiatives.

The WEE project is searching for one candidate for the position of Business Development Advisor.

Candidate Profile 

Location: Kigali

Fixed Term: 31/12/2024 

A.  Main Tasks and Responsibilities

1. Project management tasks

The Business Development Advisor is responsible for:

• Support of project management concerning project planning and the development of concepts and strategies related to the enhancement of competitiveness of women-led companies;
• Ensuring implementation of related activities according to the operational plan;
• Actively seeking cooperation within the team, within GIZ Rwanda and with other external stakeholders;
• Identification of bottlenecks in the project and recommendation of alternative options to project management;
• Coordinating and prioritizing relevant project activities in close cooperation with project management and partners;
• Monitoring the activity budget in consultation with project management and the financial officer;
• Compiling relevant information for activities, reports and assignments;
• Assisting project management in coordination of partners (e.g. women-led businesses, recipients of financing agreements);

2. Professional advisory services

The Business Development Advisor is responsible for:

• Identifying new ideas for supporting the competitiveness of women-led companies within the scope of the project;
• Quality assurance of the activities to ensure needs and demands of women-led companies and other partners within the component are met as well as suggestions of necessary changes, improvements and initiatives;
• Preparing necessary documents for contracting external service providers and recipients of financing agreements
• Contract management, including ensuring the quality of administrative processes
• Designing, preparing and implementing workshops, seminars and other events on issues related to activities related to the area of work;

Contributing to monitoring and evaluation work;

3. Networking and cooperation 

The Business Development Advisor is responsible for:

• Maintaining regular contact and dialogue with all team members and all other important stakeholders in close cooperation with project management;
• Assisting project management in the identification of new potential synergies and establishment of connection with relevant initiatives, projects and other development partners to improve and maintain effective outreach and implementation.
• Supporting PR work, including social media;

Cooperating with local communities, relevant organisations, non-governmental organizations and individuals in the project environment in general;

4. Knowledge management

The Business Development Advisor is responsible for:

• Compiling information on methods of enhancing competitiveness of women-led companies;
• Proper knowledge transfer within the project team;
• Development of drafts for strategies and technical concepts, including guidelines, manuals and procedures;
• Preparation of reports and presentation documents;
• Identification and documentation of lessons learnt and best practices as well as incorporate them into implementation;
• Support of project management with input for various project reports;

5. Other duties/tasks

The Business Development Advisor will perform any other related duties and tasks at the request of management.

B. Required Qualifications, Competences and Experience

1. Qualifications and professional experience

• University degree in Business Administration or related area.
• 5 years of professional experience in the field of private sector development, business advisory, or similar
• 1 year of professional experience in a comparable position in an international development project
• Demonstrated in-depth understanding of Rwanda’s SME and business development sector, including common challenges faced by businesses and potential opportunities for competitiveness enhancement

2. Other knowledge and additional competences

• Very good and well documented capacity to work in teams as well as independently;
• Willingness to always abide by the principles and regulations of GIZ while implementing the different activities and representing the WEE project within the different partner institutions;
• Very good and independent working knowledge of ITC applications such as MS Office, Outlook, MS Teams;
• Well-developed network and understanding of the institutional framework in the field of SME development;
• Outstanding organizational and planning abilities;
• Enthusiasm and positive attitude, supporter of diversity and inclusion;
• Willingness to develop new skills and competencies as required by the job and tasks;
• Excellent communication skills;
• Fluent in Kinyarwanda and English

Interested candidates should submit their application (motivation letter, updated CV, certificates and references), via our electronic job portal by using the button “apply”; until 29^th January 2024 at 4:00 PM. All attachments should be put together in one PDF file not larger than 2 MB.

GIZ is a signatory of the Diversity Charter. Recognition, appreciation and inclusion of diversity in the company are important to us. All employees shall be valued – regardless of gender and gender identity, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, social background, age or sexual orientation. We support equal opportunities and welcome applications from people with disabilities. 

This includes the provision of reasonable accommodation, if needed, in order to participate in the job application and interview process and to perform essential job functions. Please let us know, if you have any particular requirements should you be invited for assessment/interview or that you wish us to consider, when considering your application.  

Women and persons with disabilities are particularly encouraged to apply.

Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted for test and interview.

GIZ Office Rwanda

KN 41 St. / Nr.17, Kiyovu

P.O. Box 59, Kigali,

Rwanda 

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