Development Credit Authority (DCA) Advisor at Palladium International

Job Details

To address these failures, KIM will create a sustainable, market-based ecosystem for finance and investment through mobilizing capital into the horticulture, dairy, livestock, and clean energy value chains (VCs), and facilitating an enabling environment conducive to investment. This program will mobilize private capital into target VCs through innovative smart incentives and building partnerships with key actors that can deliver access to market, know-how, and technology to drive VC competitiveness. Concurrently, KIM will lead policy reform efforts focused on removing barriers inhibiting large-scale investment into the target sectors, therefore unlocking further finance. The two objectives of KIM will result in the project serving as an investment platform that mobilizes substantial capital from the public and private sectors and builds partnerships between stakeholders in the financial ecosystem, ultimately contributing to USAID's overall goal of fostering broad-based, sustained, and inclusive economic growth in Kenya.

The DCA Advisor will work closely with financial institutions to provide capacity building support on the utilization of DCA guarantees. This will entail providing training and technical assistance to increase DCA utilization rates, monitoring and reporting on utilization, and assisting FIs to modify DCA guarantee agreements as needed. * Conduct rapid review of financial institutions with DCA guarantees, resulting in a final baseline for DCA utilization rates to inform a strategy to expand FI usage of this tool;

• Work to connect prospective investors with DCA guarantees to ensure risk is sufficiently mitigated to finance target value chain SMEs;
• Analyze reasons for DCA under-utilization as well as success factors and develop methods to increase their utilization among Kenya's financial institutions;
• Lead the design and implementation of demand-driven training to FIs to re-design their DCA agreements to match KIM and USAID's potential investment opportunities. Provide on-demand technical assistance to FIs with DCAs throughout project implementation;
• Supervise the work of KIM subcontractors and STTA providing technical assistance and training to financial institutions;
• Work to improve financial institution reporting into the DCA database;
• Monitor DCA utilization in the Kenyan market each quarter and report this information to USAID;
• Lead conversations with USAID Kenya and DCA in Washington to negotiate changes to existing DCA guarantee instruments and how they can be modified to align with a changing Kenyan market;
• Work with the Opportunities Team to develop a pipeline of private sector firms whose loans could potentially be backed by DCA guarantees;
• Develop a community of practice among financial institutions with DCAs to share lessons learned, highlight successes, and develop best practices;
• Design and implement communication strategies, and develop case studies highlighting success in guarantee utilization, to encourage financial institutions to make use of DCAs. * Master's Degree in a relevant subject (MBA, MA in Business, Economics, International Development, Agriculture, etc.) or a B.A. and 10+ years of similar experience;
• Five years or more of work experience required in the finance and investment field;
• Significant experience and/or exposure to USAID's Development Credit Authority mechanism required;
• Overall experience with loan guarantee mechanisms, financial inclusion services, and/or alternative financing schemes required;
• Demonstrated experience providing training to financial sector actors required;
• Excellent contacts within Kenyan international banking/investment fields;
• Impeccable professional record and integrity;
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.