BACKGROUND:

A crucial goal of USAID’s Digital Strategy is to strengthen open, inclusive, and secure digital ecosystems for various countries. The adoption of digital payments can promote transparency and efficiency, boost financial inclusion for the underbanked and underserved, and expand opportunities for women. However, across many emerging markets, including in the MENA Region, the adoption of emerging technologies, including digital payments by consumers and businesses, has not been optimal.

The goal of this activity is for a team of digital payment experts to conduct an assessment comparing and contrasting the overall digital payments environment in Morocco, Iraq, West Bank/Gaza, and Libya. They will specifically examine the reasons behind the reticence to embrace digital payments by individual consumers and the business community (including SMEs) and the gaps that need to be addressed to increase adoption of digital payments, especially among women, women-led SMEs, younger population cohorts, and entrepreneurs.

To support the subject matter experts, we are looking for a local researcher in Iraq to provide country-specific data and access to key stakeholders to help determine obstacles and opportunities for broadening access to digital payments services in the referenced countries.

ACTIVITIES:

The Local Researcher (Iraq) will provide country-specific data and research for Iraq to enable the digital payments experts to conduct a detailed assessment to effectively identify the barriers to access to finance and adoption of Digital Financial Services by consumers, merchants, businesses, and governments. The team will conduct a structured and prioritized constraints analysis of the most critical legal/regulatory, institutional, and related market issues that would need to be addressed to drive the achievement of greater digital finance penetration in Iraq.

KEY DELIVERABLES/RESULTS:

The local Iraq researcher will provide a rapid analytical review of the existing evidence in the digital payments environment in Iraq, including lessons learned from the recent experiences from the pandemic, to support the digital payments subject matter experts in preparing the Iraq portion of the key deliverables specified in the approved TOR.

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE AND LEVEL OF EFFORT:

The LOE for this position is up to 15 workdays until o/a April 10, 2022.

QUALIFICATION & SKILLS / EXPERIENCE & KNOWLEDGE

• Strong knowledge in the electronic payment space and digital finance
• Experience conducting research
• Well connected in Iraq and able to get data easily

TO APPLY:

Interested and qualified candidates are invited to submit their detailed CV, and contact information (email and phone numbers) to [email protected]. Please include “Digital Finance – Local Iraq Researcher” in the subject line of the application email to be considered.“