Recruiting a Professional Intern to Participate in the Finscope 2024 Data Analysis and Coaching

Introduction

About Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR)

Access to Finance Rwanda (AFR) is a Rwandan not-for-profit company established in 2010 to promote financial inclusion and financial sector development. AFR is currently funded by Sweden, Jersey Overseas Aid, and the MasterCard Foundation.

Access to Finance Rwanda is part of the broader Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) in Africa that seeks to create a transformative impact on the ending of poverty by supporting efforts to improve financial inclusion and financial sector development by helping financial institutions and markets drive more inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

AFR supports the removal of systemic barriers that hinder access to financial services by low-income people, particularly the rural poor, women, youth, and MSMEs. AFR supports the development and provision of financial services including savings, credit, insurance, investment, payments, and remittances.

 AFR is guided by the Market System Development (MSD) approach recognizing that efforts to increase financial inclusion and financial sector development must be market-led, profitable, and sustainable.

Overview of Finscope 2024

It is widely accepted that financial inclusion plays an important role in promoting faster, broad-based economic growth and poverty reduction. In recognizing the importance of supporting financial inclusion, the Government of Rwanda (GoR) has developed the Financial Sector Development Strategy (FSDS, 2018-2024) aimed at increasing financial inclusion and therefore improving the livelihoods of people in Rwanda.

The goal is to increase access to, and use of, appropriate and affordable financial services that meet the needs of adult people in Rwanda, and by specifically ensuring that poor and underserved segments become more enabled to build their financial security, manage shocks and invest in business opportunities.

Over the past 16 years, Rwanda has carried out 4 Finscope surveys^[1] with respective series of thematic reports. In fact, since the first Finscope survey in 2008, the focus has been on producing demand side information on the determinant of financial in inclusion in Rwanda (e.g., demographics landscape and insights into people’s financial lives) as well as providing dimensions of financial inclusion and the overall country and cross-country contextual review that allows comparisons.

The series of Finscope surveys data produced on four-year intervals have extensively been used to inform the design of financial sector development strategies and interventions. More specifically, major Government of Rwanda’s mid-term strategies such as the National Strategy for Transformation (NST1) and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MINECOFIN)’s FSDS used Finscope survey data to design national and sector-level interventions for consolidating and promoting financial inclusion. In addition, Finscope survey data have also been instrumental in informing sector-specific financial inclusion targets for specific population segments such as youth, women, persons with disabilities, smallholder farmers, etc.

The Finscope survey has therefore proven to be one of the most important sources that generate evidence for promoting financial inclusion, financial sector development, and economic empowerment in Rwanda.

Objectives of the assignment

The overall objective of this assignment is to recruit a professional intern to participate in Finscope 2024 coaching and data analytics. More specifically, the professional intern will:

• Participate in coaching (capacity building) in data analytics and reporting using Finscope 2024 dataset.
• Actively participate in data analytics for Finscope 2024 thematic reports, namely, youth, gender, digital financial services, persons with disabilities, MSMEs, insurance, financial health, agriculture thematic reports as well as provincial/districts profiles.
• Participate in the review and data validation across the thematic reports,
• Support in administrative processes related Finscope 2024 thematic processes
• Participate in dissemination of Finscope 2024 thematic reports.
• Support in any other research related activities in Research and Information Pillar.

Reporting and working language

The Data analytics professional intern will directly report to the Head of Research and Information. All reports/documents will be produced in English.

Location, Duration and Starting date

Location of the position: Kigali, Rwanda

Duration of the contract: 9 months. The contract can be extended if required upon satisfactory performance of the position holder.

Expected starting date: 11^th November 2024

Qualification of the potential candidate

• At least a bachelor’s degree in Statistics, Economics, Business Analysis or Data Science,
• Professional certification in Associate Big Data Analyst (ABDA), CompTIA Data+ or any other Data analytics programs would be an advantage.

Related Experience, Knowledge and Skills

• Excellent knowledge of econometrics, modelling and data analysis focused on economic research,
• Understanding of quantitative cross-section datasets, and working longitudinal data,
• Advanced knowledge of statistical software such as STATA, SPSS, Python, etc.
• Good numerical, analytical, investigative and data administration skills.

Confidentiality

All documents and data will be treated as confidential and used solely to facilitate this assignment.

How to Apply

All qualified applicants should submit their applications by clicking on the Apply button by latest 9^th October 2024 at 5 pm.

The applicant should submit a Curriculum Vitae (CV) containing an e-mail address, daytime telephone contact, qualifications, key achievements, experience, and names & addresses of three referees together with a cover letter (maximum 2 pages) summarizing why you consider yourself well suited for the position. Please do not attach any other documents at this stage.

All applications will be selected on merit and only shortlisted candidates will be invited for interviews. For any questions regarding the application process, please contact humanresources@afr.rw

Note:

• This position is open to Rwandan national candidates only.
• Qualified Women candidates are encouraged to apply.