TOR for an International Consultant: Mapping and assessment of Business Development Services (BDS) Providers for the ILO PROSPECTS Project - Phase II
Business Development Services (BDS) providers play a vital role in fostering entrepreneurship ecosystem and supporting the growth of start-ups and existing MSMEs through providing a range of services. These include outreach initiatives to identify and engage with potential target businesses, business/financial management training/coaching, incubation, networking opportunities, access to markets and robust business readiness programs. All these services contribute to preparing start-ups and existing MSMEs to become more investment ready.
However, many private BDS providers based in emerging markets are challenged with the question of sustainability as their business model is subsidy dependent and few follow commercial approach in their service provision.
In the first phase of the PROSPECTS, International Labour Organization (ILO) played, with the support of its partners, a crucial role in bridging the gap between supply-side actors (non-financial and financial BDS providers) together but also with demand-side clients (MSMEs) including startups and scale-ups. This was achieved through a multi-pronged approach involving outreach, capacity building, referrals, and risk mitigation measures facilitated through collaboration with the Central Bank of Iraq, partner banks and the Iraqi Company for Banking Guarantees (ICBG).
As a result of these efforts, ILO built the capacity of a range of public and private BDS providers on its business and financial management tools targeting MSMEs, 38 national trainers were certified and trained over 2981 individuals who graduated from SIYB and Financial Education (FE) training programs.
Of these, 1170 individuals applied to access finance from partner banks and underwent in-house screening while conducting mini-feasibility studies in preparation to refer eligible ones to partner banks. Subsequently, 480 clients were referred to three partner banks to explore potential loan options for starting or expanding their businesses within the areas of PROSPECTS intervention in North Iraq.
In phase II, recognizing the importance of long-term sustainability and impact beyond the initial ILO intervention and emphasizing the criticality of bridging the link between potential/existing entrepreneurs and financial service providers, ILO PROSPECTS is seeking to partner with a suitable entity to assume a similar role in preparing MSMEs to be investment ready. To achieve this, a thorough institutional assessment of potential partner BDS providers need to be conducted to identify and select capable entity/ies to effectively fulfilling this role.