Investment Analyst Full Time

UNDP is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

UNDP does not tolerate sexual exploitation and abuse, any kind of harassment, including sexual harassment, and discrimination. All selected candidates will, therefore, undergo rigorous reference and background checks.

Organizational context

Scope of Work:

The overall responsibility of the Investment Analyst will be to help UNCDF better exploit its investment mandate and architecture in Sierra Leone. The Investment Analyst will provide guidance throughout the Jobs and Growth facility investment process, including the initial assessment of new opportunities, the due diligence and credit analysis, and the monitoring and follow-up of deployed transactions in close collaboration with participating financial institutions. The Investment Analyst will support UNCDF’s participating financial service providers in sourcing and screening relevant investment opportunities, which can be supported through the use of loans and guarantees.

Under direct supervision of the Programme Manager / Country Lead, the incumbent will work closely with the UNCDF HQ and regional Investment team to carry out an independent risk assessment and sometimes help structure the financial transactions. Along with the transactional work, it will be important to continuously build new knowledge from investing in different thematic areas and be able to share that knowledge with partners.

Lastly, the work will also include activities to partner over new initiatives and raise funds for the same initiatives.

1. Sourcing and screening of investment opportunities:

• In collaboration with participating Financial Service Providers, identify revenue-generating /viable projects across the agriculture and energy value chains which require additional investment to grow and achieve greater impact;
• If and where needed, initiate new specific sourcing activities such as requests for proposals, challenge funds, market scans, etc.

2. Due Diligence and Capital Deployment:

• Provide technical assistance and training to the participating Financial Institutions on improving capacity on lending to Agribusiness / Energy SMEs;
• Support several partners to access and understand the loan operations;
• Provide pre-investment business advisory support to MSMEs that want to access debt financing through participating Financial Service Providers. This may include building investable projects to access the facility, drafting business plans, building financial models, defining Standard Operating procedures, etc;
• Provide post-investment business advisor support to MSMEs which received loans through the jobs and growth facility to ensure a continued growth of the business and the social impact, including successful management of debt financing received.

4. Advocacy and Knowledge Management:

• Adopt approaches to ensure that the lessons learned from the transactional work are captured and disseminated. Document and share lessons learned from the transactional work to inform investors, government officials, DFIs, and development partners;
• Train staff from UNCDF and potentially the wider UN system in Sierra Leone on the use of financial tools such as loans and guarantees to further developmental impact;
• Contribute to the development of knowledge of the nexus of financial risk and reward and impact risk and reward.

5. Partnership and Fundraising Management

• Forge new partnerships to increase the relevance of UNCDF’s investment operations;
• Support fundraising for current and new initiatives.

Institutional Arrangements

The Investment Analyst will report to the Inclusive Digital Economies – Programme Manager in Sierra Leone. S/he will work closely with the programmes team with focus on areas of SME finance (Agribusiness and/or clean energy space in the context of financial inclusion); Project finance; Micro finance institutions; Managing Loans and Guarantee instruments etc. The Investment Analyst is expected to interact regularly with the regional team in Dakar and IDE Management as well as UNCDF’s Investment Platform for the LDCs.

Competencies

Core Competencies

• Achieve Result: LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline;
• Think Innovatively: LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements;
• Learn Continuously: LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback;
• Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible;
• Act with Determination: LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident;
• Engage and Partner: LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships;
• Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination.

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies

Business Management

• Result-based management
  • Ability to manage programmes and projects with a focus at improved performance and demonstrable results.
• Monitoring
  • Ability to provide managers and key stakeholders with regular feedback on the consistency or discrepancy between planned and actual activities and programme performance and results.
• Evaluation
  • Ability to make an independent judgement based on set criteria and benchmarks -Ability to anticipate client’s upcoming needs and concerns.
• Risk management
  • Ability to identify and organize action around mitigating and proactively managing risks.

Business Development

• Knowledge generation
  • Ability to research and turn information into useful knowledge, relevant for context, or responsive to a stated need.

Business Direction and Strategy

• System Thinking
  • Ability to use objective problem analysis and judgement to understand how interrelated elements coexist within an overall process or system, and to consider how altering one element can impact on other parts of the system.

Digital and Innovation

• Digital inclusion
  • Knowledge of how digital inclusion works, opportunities and challenges for governments and society.

Requirements:

Minimum education requirements:

• Advanced university degree (Master’s degree or equivalent) in Economics, Finance, or Business Administration is required. A professional Accountancy/Financial qualification with master’s equivalence is also acceptable.
• A first level university degree (Bachelor´s degree) in areas mentioned above, in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience will be given due consideration, in lieu of a master’s degree.
• Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) diploma, or similar is regarded as an asset.

• A minimum of two years (with Master´s degree) or four years (with Bachelor´s degree) of relevant work experience in either the financial sector or the private sector or a mix, preferably with investment expertise;
• Experience working in venture capital and/or banking within an international financial environment, preferably in development finance institution, impact investor or similar, is highly preferable;
• Experience in private credit and/or equity for investments with a social mission in emerging/frontier markets, is highly preferable;
• Experience in project preparation and/or in development of investment opportunities, especially for investment projects with social objective in developing countries is required;
• Experience of fund management, preferably a fund with both financial and impact targets is an asset.

Additional/Substantive Work-Experience in any one or more of the below-mentioned investment/operational work-areas is considered highly preferable:

• SME finance, preferably in the agribusiness and/or clean energy and/or the digital space;
• Project finance, especially for projects structured as Public Private Partnership;
• Managing Guarantee instruments and their application to different types of financial structures and to different financial institutions;
• Investment in micro finance institutions;
• Advocacy work, promoting business environments.

Required Skills:

• Experience in the usage of computers and office software packages (MS Word, Excel etc.) and advance knowledge of spreadsheet & database packages;
• Experience in use of SPSS Stata, R Studio, Power BI, Tableau, Nvivo and similar packages is an advantage;
• Able to work effectively in a team and in an international environment;
• Excellent interpersonal skills with an ability to communicate and engage with project stakeholders;
• Take a proactive approach to meeting deadlines and delivering results with limited supervision.

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section:

• Solid experience in implementation and coordination of interventions at the sub – national level;
• Experience in the implementation of community-based interventions is an asset;
• Demonstrated knowledge of business processes.

Language

• Fluency in English is required.

Disclaimer

Applicant information about UNDP rosters

Note: UNDP reserves the right to select one or more candidates from this vacancy announcement.  We may also retain applications and consider candidates applying to this post for other similar positions with UNDP at the same grade level and with similar job description, experience and educational requirements.

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Tagged as: Sierra Leone, UNDP