South west Ethiopia, Ethiopia
Deadline: August 13, 2024
Job Description
Background
Financial Services Deepening (FSD) Ethiopia: Established in 2021, FSD Ethiopia is a
development agency that aims to support the development of accessible, inclusive,
and sustainable financial markets for economic growth.
FSD Ethiopia’s role is to identify the constraints of the financial system, facilitate
market actors to address these constraints, and help build a functional and effective
financial sector that generates economic gains for Ethiopians from all walks of life.
FSD Ethiopia’s vision is to contribute to a thriving financial system that delivers real
value to the broader economy and to the people of Ethiopia.
FSD Ethiopia provides technical assistance, grants, and research insights to
policymakers, regulators, and market actors to drive large-scale change in financial markets and support sustainable economic development. It works with public,
private, and development partners in the financial sector to address critical system
constraints to facilitate change that allows the provision of effective, transparent,
stable, and inclusive financial systems. It provides tailored services to help diverse
stakeholders achieve their goals and design interventions to make Ethiopia’s financial
sector function effectively and inclusively.
FSD Ethiopia’s work focuses on three major pillars:
Financial Inclusion
FSD Ethiopia is committed to driving increased access, usage, and quality of basic financial services for individuals, households, and businesses that are historically marginalized and underserved by financial institutions.
Capital Markets
FSD Ethiopia supports the design of an equitable and efficient capital market ecosystem for diverse people to build strong businesses, communities, and economies.
Climate Finance
FSD Ethiopia’s Climate Finance interventions build environmental resilience by
mobilizing domestic and international capital to fund climate adaptation and
mitigation projects.
For more information on FSD Ethiopia, please visit the website:
Project Description
The National Financial Inclusion Strategy-II (NFIS-II) (2021-2025) has been
formulated capitalizing on the success and lessons learned from the
implementation of the first strategy that ended in the 2020/21 fiscal year,
engaging key stakeholders and taking into consideration some selected countries
best practices. The Strategy has been charted with 11 programs, 53 actions, and
around 200 activities.
To achieve its ultimate objectives, the NFIS-II will also be complemented by two
other strategies:
• National Financial Education Strategy (NFES) (2021-2025): This strategy
was approved by the Board of the National Bank of Ethiopia and the full
implementation will be started soon.
• National Digital Payment Strategy (NDPS) (2021-2023): The NDPS has been
approved by the Council of Ministers and the full implementation has been
launched recently.
The refreshed National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS 2021-2025) identifies that
the path to financial inclusion requires two dimensions; achieving basic financial
inclusion at scale as well as leveraging scale to deepen financial inclusion
complemented by financial education and consumer protection. Achieving basic
financial inclusion at scale is expected to increase the number of people that own
and use at least a payment-enabled account (incl. mobile wallet), either conventional
or sharia-compliant, with a financial institution or payments instrument issuer. On
the other hand, leveraging scale to deepen financial inclusion is aimed at increasing
the number of people that benefit from multiple, and ultimately all four (payments,
savings, credit, and insurance) major types of financial products and services.
These Strategies are coordinated and led at the top by the National Council for
Financial Inclusion (NCFI), accountable to the Prime Minister’s Office, having
broader responsibility to promoting financial inclusion through formulating National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) and coordinating various financial inclusion
initiatives going on around the country under one umbrella.
Some of the key learnings from the implementation of the first NFIS (2017) were the
need for a proper implementation follow-up mechanism and regional-level focus
(involvement) from regional-level stakeholders. In line with that, FSD Ethiopia in
collaboration with the Financial Inclusion Secretariat (FIS), housed at the National
Bank of Ethiopia (NBE), has developed a regional implementation framework for
NFIS. Further, the NFIS (2021 – 2025) outlines a governance structure including
national and regional level councils for follow-up of the implementation.
As part pf the regional implementation structure the Regional Council for Financial
Inclusion (RCFI) composed of members from key lead institutions has been set up by
the NCFI and conferred with key roles and responsibilities, jointly and severally, as
charted below. The Council with the task force accountable to it will further scale
up and deepen financial inclusion at the regional level, support, monitor and speed
up the implementation of these strategies guided by the regional financial inclusion
framework and in a more coordinated and cohesive manner.
In turn, the RCFI appoints the Regional Financial Inclusion Task Force (RFITF)
whose members are a full-time dedicated team bestowed with the role and
responsibility to promote and accelerate regional financial inclusion. The task force
has been set up by the RCFI in collaboration with the FIS/NBE and with the direction
of the NCFI. Their functions, roles and responsibilities have been defined in the NFIS
as well as in the Regional Financial Inclusion Implementation Framework.
In an effort to support the successful implementation of the NFIS, FSDE is
establishing an independent project management office (PMO) embedded within
the National Bank under the Financial Inclusion Secretariat. The office will be
staffed with well-versed technical experts with solid experience in financial
inclusion.
The PMO will mainly focus on the implementation of the defined activities and initiatives to support the implementation of NFISII in collaboration with the financial inclusion secretariat.
To this end, FSD Ethiopia is looking to hire Regional Financial Inclusion
Coordinator that will be tasked with facilitating the successful implementation of
the NFIS at a regional level by working very closely with the PMO, the Financial
Inclusion Secretariat (FIS) of the NBE, the Regional Financial Inclusion Task Force
(RFITF), and the Regional Council for Financial Inclusion (RCFI).
