Financial support and Audit to cooperatives

The Cooperative Development Activity 4 (CD4) is a $11.35M USD, 5-year (2018-2023) activity being implemented by Venture37 in Rwanda, Malawi and now Lebanon, with funding from USAID – Washington. The goal of CD4 is to advance cooperatives in all 3 countries so that they have the enabling environment, improved capacity, and resources to meet the evolving needs of their members. The work in Lebanon started as of October 2021.
The CD4 Activity is seeking to hire an external consultant or consulting company to assist CD4 12 supported cooperatives as per below tasks:

Role Description and Milestones:

Assessment:

Meet with CD4 technical team to understand CD4 program activities and know more about cooperatives’ background.

Meet with CD4 program cooperatives, each at their physical premises:

Understand their overall business operations.

Assess their current financial management practices.

Identify the key gaps related to cost, operations, record keeping, task allocation, internal control mechanism, SOP, among others.

Review cooperative financial statement for year 2022 and identify the areas of improvement.

Submit a brief report summarizing the identified gaps, and  a full plan for the proposed intervention.

Deliverables:

Develop tailored coaching material on best practices and key financial aspects and coach cooperatives accordingly (1 – 2 sessions).

Develop with the cooperative a simple/practical Standard Operating Procedure to manage the financial aspect of their business, tailored to their activity.

Develop best-fit templates or install relevant software for financial/ inventory record keeping, based on the need and capacity of the cooperative.

Coach cooperatives on the usage of the developed templates/ installed software, to ensure efficient data management.

Provide monthly follow-up on record keeping process by cooperatives.

Develop a detailed 2023 financial statement for each of the cooperatives.

Recommend best practices to improve the financial figures based on the 2023 financials.

Reporting:

Submit a progress report covering first 3 months of implementation, highlighting deliverables and participants’ engagement (attendance lists, pictures during visits…)

Submit the final report summarizing milestones, developed financial tools, and key deliverables.

Requirements:

8 years of experience in managing financial accounts for a cooperative in Lebanon.

Experience in financial/ business capacity building for cooperatives.

Experience in the development programs led by NGOs in Lebanon “desirable.”

Registered audit in the syndicate of auditors.

Satisfactory capacity to handle the targeted cooperatives (6 or 12 cooperatives).

Good understanding of cooperatives’ legal framework.