Overview : Background of Assignment The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development [MLGRD], in partnership with the Botswana Association of Local Authorities [BALA] and the United Nations Development Programme in Botswana [UNDP-Botswana] requires the services of an experienced Individual Consultant to facilitate the development of bankable business plans for local economic development [LED] projects in Sowa Town, Francistown, Chobe and Kgalagadi Districts. To date, these four districts have developed their LED strategies, following various training interventions. The strategies include the identification of different sectors and priority areas in which they have comparative advantages. This was followed by the training, mentoring and coaching of relevant stakeholders in the districts to identify and develop product value chain maps and business concepts for their LED projects. These product value chains and business concepts are ready to be developed into bankable business plans for investment and implementation. First, the training on the Product Value Chain Maps of the districts was informed by the understanding of the overall value chain concepts, value chain analysis and value chain strategy development as the basis for undertaking business diagnosis. Second, the Business Description was derived from business plan processes, stakeholder mapping and competitor analysis to describe the business units along the product value chains. These enabled participants to identify constraints and opportunities along the value chain maps and define the corrective strategies along the value chains to enhance the business processes. Third, the Business Canvas Model was used to consolidate the business processes by incorporating concepts of value chain proposition and business plan implementation arrangements. Value chain financing models, PPP models and stakeholder mapping and business linkage models along the product value chain were used to set the stage for developing the Business Canvas for each LED project. The participants used the canvas to consolidate the business plan concept. Fourth, each training session had a practical exercise that assisted in linking ‘learning by doing and knowledge’ as foundational material for the understanding of concepts. Presentation, discussions, peer-reviewing and critiquing of group exercises was very important for understanding concepts presented at the training. The focus of the current phase of rolling-out the LED projects is to support the four districts to transform the combination of product value chain maps and business concepts into bankable business plans. The bankable business plans will form the basis for attracting different sources and types of resources to finance implementation of the LED projects - value chain finance [VCF]. The VCF process focuses on identifying the elements that reduce the risk and cost of attracting both internal and external resources to finance parts of and/or the entire product value chains of the LED projects |