Opportunity EduFinance supports local affordable schools to provide accessible, quality education in low- and middle-income countries, by partnering with financial institutions. The EduFinance model combines the sustainability of education finance with locally driven EduQuality programmes to help get more children into better quality schools.

EduFinance’s Technical Assistance Facility team (ETAF) works with socially focused sustainable financial institutions and supports these financial institutions to develop, launch or grow sustainable education lending portfolios through education lending products such as loans for low-cost schools to make structural improvements, loans for parents to pay affordable school fees, and savings products.

The ETAF team is made up of finance experts based in Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America.,

To date, the ETAF team works with 58 financial institutions in 23 countries across Africa, Asia and Latin America. Financial institution partners have collectively disbursed over $328m in loans (426k number of loans) and have over 121k parents and 15k schools currently borrowing worldwide.

Opportunity EduFinance estimates the Education Finance market as a $24 billion global opportunity.

EduFinance products fall into four categories:

1. School improvement loans that can be used to renovate school facilities, add more classrooms, purchase IT/furniture with an average global ticket size $10,000, and loan tenor ranging from 1 to 3 years.
2. Working capital loans to manage school cash flows with an average global ticket size between $500 to $2,000, and loan tenors ranging from 6 months to 1 year.
3. School-fee loans to parents to support with payments such as school fees, purchase of gadgets such as laptops, learning aides etc . These have an average global ticket size $100, and loans are payable in six months.
4. Loans to support structures such as school bus operators and other vendors who provide furniture, textbooks, uniforms and technology to the schools

ABOUT THE ROLE

Essential duties include the following. Other duties may be assigned.

In Country Support to the Technical assistance advisors in Uganda:

• Support with market research project management, and product development on an on-going basis with current financial institutions partners.
• Prepare partnership proposals of new financial institutions brought on board in Africa.
• Help and support the EduFinance Team to build a strong network of financial institution partners and industry stakeholders in Uganda and Rwanda markets through constant engagement with stake holders and key partners and manage communication with key prospects.

Implementation of Technical Assistance:

• Working as part of a wider team to provide technical assistance to financial institutions and support them to build and grow education lending portfolios. This involves understanding the product development needs of microfinance institutions and banks. Typical products include market research reports, product design, staff training, credit scoring tools, business intelligence reporting and social performance management products. (This will be done through a thorough needs analysis during the onboarding process to check for expectations)
• Monitor and report upon progress of technical assistance activities at partner-financial institutions.

The reports produced above will enable the team to develop New Technical Assistance Products thus help Opportunity EduFinance improve its efficiency and value addition to its partners.

Consultants are expected to work throughout the year and some projects may have several weeks of intensive intervention work. The work intensity in-between assignments is more flexible however time allocation on average will be 0.6-0.8 FTE.

Given the strong growth in the EduFinance business, the consultant will be given a lot of responsibility to deliver significant projects in short periods of time.

SKILLS

• Excellent knowledge of financial inclusion in Uganda and Rwanda.
• Attention to detail, very solid writing skills and critical thinking.
• Good consultancy experience with MFIs, and commercial banks, with strong network of senior management engagement at these financial institutions.
• Solid experience of business development, building relationships, and implementing technical assistance projects in multiple countries across Uganda and Rwanda
• Passionate and ambitious about increasing access to education through financial services and being an integral driving part of ETAF’s long-term strategy in Africa.
• Good project management and reporting skills.
• Enthusiastic about team-based approach to technical assistance and comfortable working with multiple consultants on one project.
• Good communication skills in English and Rwandese.
• Flexibility to work on multiple projects in parallel, adjusting priorities based on team need and capacity in pursuit of organizational goals
• Ability to present findings or translate data into a coherent visual representation
• Clear commitment to the values of the organization – commitment, humility, respect, integrity, stewardship, and transformation