Organisation

The European Center for Development Services works with a range of development banks, intergovernmental organizations, academia and philanthropic foundations to address the complex interplay of factors that drive social and economic disadvantage, from support to refugees and displaced persons, gender and livelihoods, public health management and health research, education, youth and civic engagement, and institutional capacity building. Our services range from research and program design through to implementation support, monitoring and impact evaluation, and short-term trainings.

Head-quartered in Athens, Greece, we specialize in the mobilization of technical and financial resources for planning and undertaking multi-sectoral development endeavors with a network of affiliated organizations across the many regions in which we operate today. ECDS combines the knowledge and expertise of more than 60 development professionals from more than 15 countries around the world, delivering tailored development solutions in Eastern Europe, throughout the Levant, Middle East, North and Central Africa, and South Asia regions.

The breadth of our expertise enables us to accommodate a large variety of service requests in different geographic locations, while providing resources with a strong understanding of the socio-economic context. We have a robust quality control system and accomplished management to ensure that this variety is managed in an optimal manner. ECDS A.E. is global and categorically capable of specialized development services enabling eminent academic, public and private sector clients to work with us and navigate change for the better.

The European Center for Development Services is participating in a limited tender to provide strategic and technical backstopping on a MSD program with UNIDO in Egypt, starting September 2019 covering the next year.

The objective of this assignment is to provide strategic and technical backstopping for our Client and the project minimizing its delivery risk primarily throughout its inception phase and when needed during implementation. It aims to assure that the programme can achieve its goals towards systemic change and to ensure institutional learning for our Client. Through the use of tools such as the Markets Systems Development approach (MSD/M4P - see https://beamexchange.org/), and the climate environment and disaster risk reduction integration guidance (CEDRIG - see.cedrig.org) potential risks should be mitigated and innovation will be fostered.

Activities involve:
Review and verification of project design (5 days homebased)
Capacity building and training on MSD tools and CEDRIG (climate, environment and disaster risks reduction integration guidance) to mitigate risks(5 days Cairo)
Support to the project steering document (5 days homebased + 5 days Cairo)
Advisory on knowledge management and institutional learning (10-15 days Cairo)
Networking and linking the project with relevant Swiss thinktanks and experts (ongoing homebased)

Competencies required:
Good knowledge of market system development (MSD) and making markets work for the poor (MMW4P) methodologies.
Experience with training and capacity building on development tools such as MSD, M4P, MMW4P and CEDRIG.
Have linkages with relevant Swiss experts, think tanks, and universities as well as Swiss private sector companies.
An understanding of agricultural waste management and green agricultural economy sector is essential.
Knowledge of the Egyptian context is preferable.

Application Process:
Interested candidates are invited to submit a cover letter and CV, along with a home-based daily rate, demonstrating:

Suitability against the competencies outlined
Experience in performing the required activities
Reference to other backstopping mandates performed

The application can be emailed to Apply to send email to the employer