On-site Business Consultant for Small and Micro Enterprises

EcoPeace ME UCONN Partnership About of EcoPeace Middle East

EcoPalestine is the Palestinian affiliate of EcoPeace Middle East, a unique organization that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists. Our primary objective is the promotion of cooperative efforts to protect our shared environmental heritage. In so doing, we seek to advance both sustainable regional development and the creation of necessary conditions for lasting peace in our region.

 About of UCONN 

The University of Connecticut (UCONN) is a public land-grant research university in Storrs, Connecticut. Considered a Public Ivy school, it’s home to the School of Business. Daigle Labs is an applied entrepreneurship lab formed in partnership between the School of Business at The University of Connecticut and the Werth Institute with Dr. Ryan Coles as the Chief Scientist. Daigle Labs produces cutting edge research on how to build entrepreneurial communities, how to organizationally design start-ups, and how to support founder mental health during the start-up process.

Project Background

The project aims at helping micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs) in Palestine, increase their revenue and reduce their per capita carbon footprint (energy intensity per employee). SMEs, by some estimates, account for 43% to 53% of business greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. However, SMEs are difficult to target with energy public policy due to their diversity. One possible solution to reducing SME contribution to greenhouse gas emissions is increasing their accessibility to management training and coaching. Better managed firms are significantly less energy intensive. This effect is quantitatively substantial: going from the 25th to the 75th percentile of management practice effectiveness is associated with a 17.4% reduction in energy intensity.

Overall, providing SMEs access to our business development initiative is a substantially effective intervention to simultaneously:

1.Reduce greenhouse gas emissions

2. Increase women’s economic empowerment

3. Improve local economic productivity

4.Reduce poverty

The project’s MSME training will take place over the course of seven-months started from March 2023to September 2023 . We plan to provide Daigle Lab’s signature management trainings to 35-40 MSMEs across Palestine (West Bank and Gaza) and give management tips via text to a 35-40 MSMEs control group in order to examine the impact of the training on MSMEs in Palestine and set the stage for a long-term EcoPeace/UCONN MSME Development Program facilitated by the Joseph I. Lieberman Program for Entrepreneurship in MENA. The pilot project sites will include clusters of MSMEs in West Bank as well as in Gaza.

Scope of Work

We are a global team passionate for providing SME Operators with tools and practices to help them improve their business’ operations. We do this by understanding the holistic health of their businesses using our Business Performance Evaluation tool and creating strategies that also result in measurable data. This includes, but is not limited to:

This consultancy mission is expected to last seven months prior to the organization of the certified TOT from UCONN University, at least four trainers will be contracted locally to provide the face-to-face and or online individual coaching to each SME.

Responsibilities

Participate in on-line training provided by Daigle Labs to operate the training system, in total 12

Each trainer will be responsible to manage a portfolio of 10-15 SME Operators to receive the Daigle Labs Business Training for a period of 7 months,

The estimated effort as followed:

Description #of Hours

TOT Sessions (Hybrid) 12

Project Team Follow up Meetings 13

BPE Application - Pre & Post 24

Communications 5

On job Consulting per SME for the duration of the Training 7

Remote Consulting per SME for the duration of the Training 7

Maintain participation rates and retention of portfolio (>90%) for the duration of the Seven months,

Administrate the training using the materials and curriculum provided by Daigle Labs and create strategies to help the business improve,

Understand and evaluate businesses using the Daigle Labs Business Performance Evaluation™ twice per training cycle,

Gather information about the business performance using the Pivot™ App, reporting on each interaction with SME Operators based on the in project team requirements

Each trainer will be responsible to develop and submit a portfolio report and other related documents

Qualifications and Experiences

Tender Procedures

For interested qualified individuals, kindly to submit the following: “not exceed 5 pages”

Financial proposal. (excluding transportation cost)

One-page Cover letter, explain motivation, expectations and previous experience

Technical qualification validating documents (CV, Certificates, ID Copy, …etc.)

Highlight previous experience in the same role and determine the best sections to cover.

Reference letter and contact details from previous jobs (3 minimum)

The interested candidates should submit technical and financial proposals both in electronic copy formats.

Documentation of validity of prices for 180 days

Suggested cost (Financial) breakdown per hour in USD and Including 10 % Income Tax

Indication of the period of availability to carry out the consultancy.

EcoPeace will respond to any questions received by e-meeting Wednesday Jan 18th, 2023 EcoPeace may extend the closing date to ensure consultants have adequate time to consider answers and reply accordingly.

Interested candidates can have a copy of TOR  by sending email to: [email protected] , TECHNICAL & FINANCIAL PROPOSALS for this consultancy service are to be submitted no later than Jan 24th, 2023, by 16:00 PM to the following email address: [email protected]