Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility (CCPF) Operations and Financial Coordinator Consultant

Post of duty: Barbados.

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The economies of the Caribbean are small, open economies that depend mainly on tourism or on the exploitation of natural resources, and that show persistent declining growth rates over time.1 In most of the countries, the top three exports account for 70% of total exports and merchandise exports have typically been unsophisticated, ubiquitous low value-added commodities like bauxite, oil and sugar.2 These economies have shown stagnant or declining growth rates over the last decades. In per capita terms, growth in the region declined from an average of 3.9% in the 1980s to 1.7% during the first six years of the 21st century. Following the world crisis, average GDP growth for the CARIFORUM region between 2009 and 2013 further declined to only 0.57%. Moreover, growth over the past two decades has also been consistently lower than that of other small, comparable economies3. The region is also highly indebted, exceeding 90% of GDP on average in the tourism-based economies by 2014, and averaging 1.5 times the debt-to-GDP ratio of other small economies in 2012. Constrained by this debt overhang, the region’s level of investment/GDP is currently merely 15%, half of that of the rest of the world.

The Caribbean’s difficult fiscal context underscores the importance of export-oriented private sector development as an engine of growth for the region. However, the region’s low growth rates are related to a weak institutional environment and scant development of its private sector.4 Private sector development still represents a major developmental challenge for the region, as most Caribbean countries need to improve their business and innovation climate as shown by the Doing Business Report.5 While some countries made progress in their competitiveness and doing business indicators, there are still areas for enhancing the business climate.

As it relates to the private sector, the region’s ability to harness private sector development as an engine of growth is constrained6. For example, when comparing the performance of the Caribbean private sector to that of the Rest of Small Economies (ROSE), the Caribbean’s private sector performance is lackluster, particularly with respect to productivity.7 Caribbean firms tend to be micro or small in size, concentrated in the services sectors, mature in age, and non-exporters. Most of them are small (between 10 and 50 employees) or micro (10 employees or less),8 and there are few large firms. Caribbean firms tend to scale up less than in other countries9. Although firms usually start with an average of 40 workers, similar to firms in other non-Caribbean regions, they tend to remain at the same size over time, while non-Caribbean firms typically grow by more than 100% during the same time horizon. When compared to other small economies,10 Caribbean firms still tend to grow relatively less, indicating that there may be Caribbean-specific issues at play. In addition, the level of innovative activity of the firms in the region is fairly low. On average, 8% of the firms engage in innovative activities, while only 5% engage in cooperative innovation.11

In this context, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO), Global Affairs Canada (GAC), and the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), are co-financing a program called “The Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility (CCPF)” (RG-X1246). The CCPF is executed by the Inter-American Development Bank, through a Facility Coordination Unit based in the IDB’s Barbados Country Office. The CCPF initiated activities in May 2017, and it is expected to end March 2024.

The team’s mission:

The objective of the Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility (CCPII) is to support the region in increasing productivity and Caribbean firms’ contribution to economic growth. The specific objectives are: (i) to support firms to grow, innovate and enter new sectors and markets; and (ii) to promote an environment that enables innovation and growth.

The CCPF is deepening elements of the first Compete Caribbean Program (CCP) that ended in 2017, while also placing emphasis on strengthening the institutions seeking to enhance the productivity of firms and clusters in the region. It has the mandate of enhancing the catalytic impact of its activities by involving new partners and by having a stronger focus on long term sustainability, including greater emphasis on transferring the underlying know-how of its interventions to strategic public and private sector actors. The CCPF is also targeting institutional capacity building on the more vulnerable and smaller countries of the region with a proactive approach towards these countries.

The first phase of the Compete Caribbean Program (CCP) addressed the objective of fostering private sector development and increasing competitiveness through different kinds of activities, which included institutional strengthening, legal and regulatory reform, technical assistance to innovative firms and groups of firms, and knowledge production and dissemination. The first phase also produced previously unavailable data about the private sector. The rationale for a second phase comes from the opportunity to build on the results and lessons learned of the first one by: (i) focusing on specific issues that affect firm’s productivity, growth and employment diagnosed under the first phase; and (ii) building the capacity of indigenous institutions to replicate in a sustainable manner the methodologies developed under the first phase.

The objective of this consultancy is to manage the financial and fiduciary aspects related to the implementation of the portfolio of Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility projects. This involves support at the Program level, as well as fiduciary oversight on Pillar 1 projects, especially beneficiary executed ones.

The Compete Caribbean Facility provides an opportunity to deepen the results achieved in CCP while contributing to build an adequate institutional framework to carry forward a competitiveness agenda post-Compete Caribbean. The design for the second phase incorporates lessons learned, data and experiences from the first phase, including the best practices and areas for improvement identified during CCP’s execution.

1 Caribbean is defined by the six Caribbean members of the Bank: The Bahamas, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago, along with the six OECS (Organization of Eastern Caribbean States) countries: Antigua and Barbuda; Dominica: Grenada; Jamaica; St. Lucia; St. Kitts and Nevis; and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Belize, which is under the Bank’s Central American Department.}

2 Hausman, Ricardo and Klinger, Bailey. “Policies for Achieving Structural Transformation in the Caribbean”. Private Sector Discussion Paper, Institutional Capacity and Finance. 2009. IDB. (No. IDB-DP-163).}

3 Ruprah, Inder and Sierra, Ricardo (2014). Is there a Caribbean Sclerosis? Inter-American Development Bank.

4 Ruprah, Inder, Melgarejo, Karl Alexander, and Sierra, Ricardo. “Is There a Caribbean Sclerosis?” 2014. IDB.

5 World Bank. 2015 Doing Business Report.

6 The main challenges that firms in the Caribbean face are: (i) small markets which hinder scaling up; (ii) vulnerability to external shocks;

(iii) geographical fragmentation leading to high transportation, energy and logistics costs; (iv) low levels of technological readiness and innovation; (v) weak institutions managing burdensome regulatory and administrative procedures.

7Ruprah, Melgarejo, and Sierra (2014). ROSE refers to countries with less than 3 million population outside the Caribbean.

8 Cathles, Allison and Pangerl, Siobhan. Determinants of Firm Performance in LAC: What Does the Micro Evidence tell us? Chapter 7: Caribbean Countries are small but their Firms can grow to be more productive. 2015. IDB Publication.

9 Wagner. (2015). Regressions based on cross-sectional analysis of Enterprise Surveys 2010.

10 When compared with other small economies below US$5 billion.

11 Pietrobelli, Carlo and Grazzi, Matteo. (Editors). Determinants of Firm Performance in LAC: What Does the Micro Evidence tell us? Chapter 3: Innovation in the Caribbean. 2015.

About this position:

We are looking for an analytical, detailed and organized Operations and Financial Coordinator. As Operations and Financial Coordinator, you will be responsible for managing activities related to the implementation of the portfolio of projects, monitoring of disbursements, budgeting, accounting, administration, and financial reporting for the Compete Caribbean Facility Coordination Unit (FCU).

You will work in Compete Caribbean Partnership Facility part of IFD/CTI department. The Competitiveness, Technology and Innovation (CTI) Division, provides funding, technical assistance and knowledge products to support governments in key action areas such as firm-level innovation, entrepreneurship ecosystems, green innovation, digital transformation, creative economy, social innovation, and productive development.

What you’ll do:

• Implementing and maintaining adequate financial accounting administration and internal oversight systems for the management of Facility resources.
• Implementing and maintaining Facility budgetary reports.
• Ensuring that the Facility operates within Bank procedures.
• Leading the financial due diligence process on potential Pillar 1 beneficiaries, as needed.
• Ensuring the transfer of financial management methodologies and helping to ensure the integrity of the Facility’s disbursements, particularly in relation to Pillar 1 projects (private sector innovation), or to projects co-executed with an external agency.
• Overseeing the accounting and financial aspects of the closure of projects supported by the Program.
• Liaising with external auditors and ensuring that Bank and Program regulations are adhered to.
• Prepare monthly, quarterly, and annual operations and financial performance reports or other reports related to Program implementation.
• Other activities as they become necessary.

  Specifically, these activities can be expanded into four categories as follows:

  • Operations (40%): (a) assist the Facility Coordinator in overseeing the progress of the Facility’s operations, across the two pillars; (b) for projects executed or co-executed by third parties, assist in strengthening their financial management capabilities and monitoring their financial performance, anticipating opportunities and risks associated with individual projects and the overall portfolio using standard tools/metrics; (c) prepare technical and operational reports related to the Facility, as needed. These reports include notes, briefings, programming and portfolio documents, presentations, or other written information requested by the Facility Coordinator
  • Finance and Fiduciary (35%): (a) review and coordinate the procurement of goods and services with Program resources; (b) analyze, process and authorize disbursements related to milestones; (c) conduct fiduciary risk analysis of projects submitted to the private sector innovation pillar; (d) maintain Bank’s internal systems in relation to projects; (e) liaise with IDB’s financial and audit departments and ensure that Compete Caribbean complies with all fiduciary regulations; (f) oversee the accounting aspects of the closure of projects supported by the Program; (g) assess the selection and engagement of external auditors; (h) assess execution capacity on the part of external executing agencies (i.e. individual firm beneficiaries or projects executed by third parties), and provide recommendations to strengthen this capacity; and (i) prepare monthly, quarterly and annual financial performance reports.
  • Accounting (20%): (a) implement and maintain adequate financial accounting administration and internal oversight systems for the management of Facility resources;
  • (b) manage a record system of counterpart in–cash and in-kind contributions to the Facility; (c) implement and maintain the Facility’s budgetary reports and prepare monthly, quarterly and annual performance reports and any other reports that may require for the Facility’s implementation; (d) review and approve the Facility’s payroll schedule for the FCU consultants.
  • PCU Administration (5%): (a) authorize the purchasing of goods and services necessary for the functioning of the office; (b) authorize travel arrangements as they become necessary for the effective functioning of the CC program; (c) oversee the management of the Program’s infrastructure, material resources and financial resources and information systems and the administrative aspects related to human resources; and (d) coordinate all personnel hired to work on the administrative team.
  • Reports: Guided by the scope of this consultancy and the general requirements of the COMPETE CARIBBEAN program, the consultant will produce an indeterminate number of reports, reviews, and other documents as they become necessary for the effective running of the FCU and or on the request of the Facility Coordinator.
  • In addition, the consultant will be required to produce monthly reports identifying progress made on agreed key performance indicators (KPIs). These reports will form the basis of the consultant’s on-going and final assessment at the end of the twelve (12) month period.

    What you'll need:

    • Education: Master’s degree in Business Administration, Accounting or Finance and/or is a professional accountant (CPA, ACCA, CGA or equivalent membership of an internationally recognized professional accounting institute).
    • Experience: A At least 5 years of experience and achievements working in financial management and administration, of which at least 5 years must have been held in a senior position.
    • Languages: Proficiency in English.

      Key skills:

      • Learn continuously.
      • Collaborate and share knowledge.
      • Focus on clients.
      • Communicate and influence.
      • Innovate and try new things.

        Requirements:

        • Citizenship: You are a citizen of one of our 48-member countries.
        • Consanguinity: You have no family members (up to the fourth degree of consanguinity and second degree of affinity, including spouse) working at the IDB, IDB Invest, or IDB Lab.

          Type of contract and duration:

          • Type of contract: International Consultant Full-Time.
          • Length of contract: 12 months.
          • Work Location: On site.