Short-Term Business Enabling Environment Consultant

The LED project is funded by USAID with a goal to increase employment opportunities for Lebanese citizens. LED will identify binding constraints preventing businesses from increasing sales or reaching new buyers/customers and will provide customized technical assistance to enable enterprises expand their activities, increase sales and create jobs. In addition, in support of an improved business enabling environment (BEE) in Lebanon, LED will prioritize selected BEE problems and then work with stakeholders to propose and implement the needed solutions

To kick-start the BEE component, LED seeks a short-term consultant to develop a prioritized list of BEE constraints that impede enterprise (or sector) growth and thereby create barriers to increasing new employment opportunities (jobs) for Lebanese citizens.

The listed constraints shall be identified through a thorough review of relevant and current literature and through interviews with key informants, targeting the heads of business associations, syndicates, and other relevant NGOs and entities involved in lobbying and advocacy activities. The consultant shall also meet with representatives from leading private sector groups or holding companies, influential businesses, banks, policy/research think-tanks or any other organization or individual who can offer informed and credible opinions concerning relevant BEE issues and constraints.

BEE issues relevant to and of interest to LED are policy, legal, regulatory, administrative, budgetary or institutional issues that have clear, demonstrable links to creating (or preventing) new jobs for Lebanese citizens; reducing (or increasing) the cost of doing business, increasing (or discouraging) private sector investments, increasing (or decreasing) revenues—domestic or export—or that have other beneficial impacts at the enterprise- or sector-level.

The consultant shall have the following qualifications:

• Minimum 10 years’ experience in private sector development consulting for donor programs
• Knowledge of business enabling environment (BEE) issues in Lebanon, including policies and regulations affecting the private sector enterprises and sectors
• Ability to analyze and recommend solutions for BEE issues that will support private enterprise growth and private sector development leading to increased employment
• Fluency in English and Arabic, with ability to write professionally in English