Consultant at Mercy Corps Limited / Gte - 4 Openings

Mercy Corps has been present in Nigeria since 2012, focusing its interventions on humanitarian assistance, economic development, and conflict mitigation. With the ongoing insurgency, and other forms of identity-related conflicts, causing the displacement of thousands of individuals and communities in North-East Nigeria (NEN), Mercy Corps started its humanitarian response in the region in 2014 to address rising humanitarian needs. As the crisis persists, Mercy Corps’ strategy has also expanded to address the root causes of the conflict and seek to build the long-term resilience of communities with integrated multi sectoral programs that focus on governance, the recovery of markets and livelihoods, improving nutrition and food security, improving social cohesion and protection, youth empowerment, and enhancing local conflict management.

We are recruiting to fill the position below:

Job Title: Consultant, Business Case for Disability Inclusion in Market Place and Economic Opportunity in Northeast Nigeria

Locations: Adamawa, Borno, Gombe and Yobe
Employment Type: Contract

Background

• The Feed the Future Nigeria Rural Resilience Activity is funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Mercy Corps in partnership with Save the Children International (SCI) and the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC).
• The goal of the Rural Resilience Activity is to ‘facilitate and protect economic recovery and growth in vulnerable, conflict-affected areas and sustainably move people out of chronic vulnerability and poverty via expanded opportunities.
• The Activity seeks to increase incomes, improve the livelihood and resilience of households through market-led growth in 4 States in Northeast Nigeria. This will ensure long-term improvements to markets that will sustainably move nearly 600,000 households out of chronic poverty.
• RRA uses Market Systems Development (MSD) as an approach that seeks to influence incentives and relationships among actors to affect how public and private actors behave, helping important market functions to perform more effectively and encouraging businesses to innovate, adapt, grow, and serve wider populations.
• In the Northeast, RRA is taking a closer look at who is included in these wider populations and who is excluded and placing more attention on purposefully including frequently excluded groups like women and people with disabilities (PWD).

Purpose / Project Description

• Through this consultancy, RRA seeks to use a market lens and economic rationale to facilitate greater inclusion of PWDs into the market and economic opportunities in a meaningful and sustainable manner. The Activity seeks the services of a professional consultancy agency or consultant to develop evidence-based, practical and market-driven solutions and innovative business for persons living with disabilities in the marketplace.
• RRA considers PWDs as potential employees in companies, as entrepreneurs, as suppliers, as owners of microenterprises and other businesses, and as consumers, too. The project therefore supports the development of business cases which must be informed by the incentives that drive a market and its actors to engage PWDs in marketplaces. RRA works with the private sector to align or introduce incentives that are often closely linked to enhancing business performance and increasing profits. Companies—large and small, in Northeast Nigeria—may be driven by a “double bottom line” of social impact and business performance. Given this complexity, it is essential that RRA understands the incentives of the private sector partners with which they seek to work, how gender plays into these incentives, and how these incentives can be leveraged to benefit people living with disability.

Consultant Objectives
The consultancy will address the following questions:

• What are the most promising areas in the marketplace that offer the best opportunities for PWDs in Northeast?
• How well can PWDs be engaged in a meaningful and impactful manner in a marketplace?
• What are the major barriers that limit the chances for PWDs from seizing the market opportunities?
• What are the incentives for market players to engage with PWDs?
• What are the institutional structures of PWDs in Northeast Nigeria? Are there opportunities for engaging them in economic activities on a commercial and sustainable manner?

The PWD business case will lead to investment partnerships that will support initiatives within sectors that provide the greatest economic opportunity, whether directly or indirectly, to PWD. These sectors can include, but are not limited to agriculture, manufacturing, services, healthcare, technology, and logistics and transportation. Through the consultancy service, RRA seeks to channel business resources, expertise, technology, and influence to contribute to one or more of the following objectives:

• Testing, amplifying, or scaling new opportunities for people living with disability.
• Enhancing the ability of people with disabilities to operate their economic activities independently.
• Expanding and improving the quality of paid services that PWD offer or demand.
• Expanding equitable access to affordable, quality, good and services.
• Expand opportunities that could benefit PWD as employees, consumers, entrepreneurs, suppliers, business owners.
• Developing the capacity of workplaces/companies to provide and deliver goods and services that are demanded by the persons living with disability.
• Increase the chances of PWD on economic and income generating activities.

Consultants' Deliverables:

• Report that addresses all the consultancy objectives, highlights the Business Case for Disability Inclusion in Marketplace and Economic Opportunities in Northeast Nigeria.
• Timeframe / Schedule: one month
• The Consultant will work closely with: RRA team

Requirements
Interested Applicants should have:

• Master’s Degree in Business Administration or its equivalent
• 7+ years of experience and proven track record in successful consulting firm or as a consult.
• Working experience as business or investment analyst, strategy development at a commercial firm.
• Experience in actively helping entrepreneurs identify opportunities.
• Working knowledge people living with disability.
• Working knowledge of solving the in Northeast Nigeria marketplace.
• Working experience engaging key stakeholders in the private sector and inclusion.Language skills: Excellent English proficiency (oral and written)
• Hausa language is added advantage.

Application Closing Date
10th October, 2022.