Business Development Assistant – Western Region

Details

Mission and objectives

As the United Nations lead agency on international development, UNDP works in 170 countries and territories to eradicate poverty and reduce inequality. We help countries to develop policies, leadership skills, partnering abilities, institutional capabilities, and to build resilience to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our work is concentrated in three focus areas; sustainable development, democratic governance and peacebuilding, and climate and disaster resilience.
UNDP’s mandate is to end poverty, build democratic governance, rule of law, and inclusive institutions. We advocate for change and connect countries to knowledge, experience and resources to help people build a better life.

Context

UNDP has been long supporting the Government of Timor-Leste in fostering youth-led MSMEs. The initiative was sharpened in 2021 under the Supporting Employment and Entrepreneurship for Women and Youth (SEEWAY) Project and later was scaled up and sustained under the Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship Skills (YEES) Project from 2022-2027. To this date, UNDP has been supporting over 300 youth-led enterprises across the country in different sectors and value chains aligning with the government’s priority, such as in agriculture, tourism, and small industry. The youth entrepreneurs were supported through a series of business training and financial access, such as soft loans and grants through the Business Innovation Challenge.
The YEES project is focusing on producing two medium-term sub-outcomes: 1) youth become employed and 2) youth become entrepreneurs, which will contribute to UNSDCF/CPD outcome 2: By 2025, institutions and people throughout Timor-Leste in all their diversity, especially women and youth, benefit from sustainable economic opportunities and decent work to reduce poverty, with three interrelated outputs:
Output 1: Youth obtain skills, competencies, and knowledge to be employed.
Output 2: Service providers are available to deliver holistic support to enhance employability.
Output 3: Youth, including migrants/returnees, obtain skills, knowledge, and services to start or expand their business.
To achieve output 3, YEES Project will deliver a series of entrepreneurship skills development support for youth, including business competition, entrepreneurship training, and day-to-day mentoring to help youth entrepreneurs generate their business ideas and establish and scale up their businesses. Against this backdrop, the YEES Project will hire three Business Development Assistants to support entrepreneurship development focusing on the operating business competition including the Business Innovation Challenge in the Western Region (Liquiça, Ermera, Bobonaro).

Task description

Under the guidance and direct supervision of the Project Manager, the Youth Employment Assistant will perform assignments as below but not limited to:
• Provide assistance to monitor youth-led entrepreneurs who are supported by the YEES project in Timor-Leste to launch, register, or/and expand their business by providing mentoring, monitoring, and guidance on their business plans, management, procurement, etc.
• Support the process of organizing the business challenge events by paying attention to all logistical details in the Western Region (Liquiça, Ermera, Bobonaro)
• Assist the project in preparing event reports, analytical presentations, infographics, data, etc and implement the project activities at the municipal level.
• Work collaboratively with the Finance and Procurement Unit in the overall payment and procurement process.
Furthermore, UN Volunteers are encouraged to integrate the UN Volunteers programme mandate within their assignment and promote voluntary action through engagement with communities in the course of their work. As such, UN Volunteers should dedicate a part of their working time to some of the following suggested activities:
• Strengthen their knowledge and understanding of the concept of volunteerism by reading relevant UNV and external publications and taking an active part in UNV activities (for instance in events that mark International Volunteer Day);
• Be acquainted with and build on traditional and/or local forms of volunteerism in the host country;
• Provide annual and end of assignment self-reports on UN Volunteer actions, results and opportunities.
• Contribute articles/write-ups on field experiences and submit them for UNV publications/websites, newsletters, press releases, etc.;
• Assist with the UNV Buddy Programme for newly-arrived UN Volunteers;
• Promote or advise local groups in the use of online volunteering or encourage relevant local individuals and organizations to use the UNV Online Volunteering service whenever technically possible.