Consultants Needed at Mercy Corps Nigeria

• The Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity (hereafter referred to as the Activity) is a five-year, $45 million initiative funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) covering the states of Adamawa, Borno, Gombe, and Yobe in North Eastern Nigeria (NEN). The Activity will facilitate economic recovery and growth in vulnerable, conflict-affected areas.
• The purpose of the Activity is to sustainably move people out of chronic vulnerability and poverty in NEN through expanded economic opportunities. The overarching approach of the Activity involves strengthening resilience capacities at household, community, and market-systems levels to ensure the sustainability of poverty reduction and economic recovery efforts. The Activity intends to reach 540,000 individual participants including farmers; micro-, small-, and medium-enterprises (MSMEs); youth; women; and children in 23 local government areas (LGAs) across the four states. Mercy Corps leads a consortium partnership of Save the Children International (SCI) and the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC).
• In July 2021, the Activity received an additional $15 million to support 45,000 smallholder farmers, small ruminant producers, and microenterprises to recover from the impact of COVID-19 on livelihoods and markets. As a result of the additional funding, the Activity has now expanded to Kebbi, Niger, Benue, and Ebonyi states and the Federal Capital Territory.
• The Activity has five core components including:
  • Providing up-to-date evidence for selection of market systems, livelihoods and employment opportunities that contribute to inclusive and resilient growth and improved nutrition;
  • Stimulating market systems growth and diverse economic opportunities;
  • Building capacities of market actors to take advantage of market systems opportunities;
  • Sequencing, layering, integrating (SLI), and collaborative learning to improve activity effectiveness, sustainability, and scale; and
  • Cushioning impacts of COVID-19 on households and micro-enterprises through cash transfers. Added to these components are cross-cutting elements that are essential for building the resilience capacities of the NEN population. The cross-cutting elements include integration of gender and youth, nutrition-sensitive agriculture, climate change adaptation and natural resource management, conflict sensitivity, peacebuilding and social capital, and cohesion.
• This effort will contribute to USAID’s 2020-2025 Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) development objective 1 (DO1): broadened and inclusive economic growth and DO3: accountable, inclusive and responsive governance strengthened.
• Also, this aligns with CDCS intermediate results (IR) 1.1: incomes, food security, and nutrition in targeted geographies improved, IR1.3: private sector contribution to inclusive economic growth increased and IR 1.4: water resources management and services improved. Similarly, it also aligns with IR3.1: strengthened conflict prevention and response.

• We seek a highly motivated individual / team who believes deeply in Mercy Corps organizational mission and who can display a record of results and achievements, providing programs with technical guidance and support in building resilience of market actors (including farmers, MSMEs, processors) using Market System Development approach in conflict affected areas like northeast Nigeria.
• In addition, the team should display their experience in supporting interventions that transitions humanitarian support to more resilient and recovery interventions. Also, the team should display experience in evaluating/assessing cash transfer interventions.

• Collect phase 2 of RRA Annual Survey and analyze phase 2 data with phase 1 data and report
• Review and finalize Annual Survey protocol

Basic Knowledge, Skills and Abilities Required

• Mercy Corps places premium on selecting competent Consultants consisting of a multi-disciplinary team of staff with the requisite combination of skills, expertise and experience to carry out annual survey as the project components consist of water management for smallholder farmers and herders, capacity building for state and LG institutions for water management, improving productivity and income for smallholder farmers and herders, and conflict resolution amongst farmers and herders.
• This also should be in line the USAID Feed the Future Indicator Guide and Global Food Security Strategy (GFSS). Ideally, the consulting firm should have consultants and associate consultant with survey experience in water resource management, livestock and agronomy.

In addition, the Consultancy Firm should have:

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in evaluation of international development programming, preferably of recovery/resilience, infrastructure, livelihood and/or social cohesion programs;
• Evidence of having carried similar USAID evaluation, especially in NE Nigeria on water resource management, agriculture, livestock and conflict sensitivity and DNH activities.
• Experience in collection and analyses of large dataset using T4D platforms.
• Excellent data presentation skills using various data visualization tools Excel, PowerBI, Adobe Illustrator and other visualization applicationsUse of statistical packages (SPSS, STATA, Excel), qualitative package (Atlas.ti) or data collection, transmission and analyses.

Expected Deliverables

• Reviewed and updated annual survey protocol A annual survey protocol should be reviewed and finalized 1 week after contract agreement. The annual survey protocol should follow the outline:
  • Introduction
  • Objectives of the survey
  • Annual survey questions
  • Methodology
  • Sampling design
  • Data collection process
  • Data analysis and reporting
  • Tools/data gathering data for each audience group:
    • Pre-test the tools and
    • Translate and back translate the tools into languages of participant groups
• Detailed work plan for the evaluation activity
• Annual survey report with a maximum of 30 pages in length (excluding Annexes). The Report will have the following structure:
  • Executive Summary (2 pages)
  • Introduction and background (2 pages)
  • Annual survey evaluation questions (2 pages)
  • Methodology and methodological limitations (4 page)
  • Key research findings (15 pages)
  • Conclusions and recommendations (5 pages)
  • Annexes (research instruments, list of people interviewed, references to the documents reviewed, etc.)
• A final consultancy report and recommendation to Mercy Corps.

Please Note that all Submissions should also include the Following:

• The technical bid will be evaluated based on its responsiveness to the SOW and the evaluation criteria. The Financial Bid will only be evaluated if the Technical Bid achieves a minimum score of 60% of the points and is considered qualified through the supplier qualification process.
• Proposals failing to obtain this minimum technical threshold or those which will not be considered qualified through the supplier qualification process will not be eligible for further consideration.

Technical evaluation will be based on the following criteria:

• Professional experience of the staff that will be employed to the project providing demonstrated expertise in evaluation and related processes (CVs, etc.)
  • The Applicant has at least an Associate Consultant with bachelor’s degree in agriculture, economics and related field with at least 5 years’ experience or Masters in Agric related tracks, economics, statistics with at least 3 years’ experience in conducting evaluation surveys for USAID Agriculture, livelihood and WaSH projects and Technical Expertise and experience in nutrition, crops, livestock and Water Resource Management and related disciplines
  • The team leader should have bachelor’s degree in statistics, agriculture, economics, public health and related field with at least 5 years’ experience or Masters in Agric related tracks, economics, statistics, public health with at least 5 years’ experience in conducting evaluation surveys for USAID Agriculture, livelihood and MSD projects and Technical Expertise and experience in nutrition, crops, livestock and Water Resource Management and related disciplines and demonstrate strong facilitative and team leadership experience and history of delivering consultancy assignments within the stipulated timeframe.
• A Technical approach, methodology and level of understanding of the objectives of the evaluation:
  • The submitted concept note should show understanding of the requested tasks, as articulated in the objective of the assignment and a description of how the offeror proposes to undertake the assignment in view of the implementation progress overview highlighted in section III;
  • A clear description of how the Consultants propose to undertake the assignment, including sampling method; data analysis plan, including Quality Assurance Plan
  • Appropriateness of the approach in relation to the objectives of the programme
• Work plan/time scales given in the proposal and its adequacy to meet the evaluation objectives and questions
• Prior experience of handling projects of this nature (examples of similar services provided, references, etc.):
  • A reputable track record of conducting USAID Agriculture and nutrition related surveys and plans at multi-country, national (Nigeria) or sub-national levels.
  • Conducting large scale studies demonstrating experience in applying qualitative and quantitative research methodology.

• The consultant will require travel to Borno, Adamawa, Yobe and Gombe states.

Application Closing Date
22nd November, 2021.

Method of Application
Interested and qualified candidates should send their Applications to: toluwayose@mercycorps.org using "Consultant to Train teams to collect Phase 2 of Rural Resilience Activity Annual Survey and to analyze Phase 2 Data with Phase 1 data and report" as the subject of the mail.