Value Chain Mapping & Linkage Consultant at Mercy Corps

Job Description
Background:

• Mercy Corps is a leading global humanitarian agency committed to saving and improving lives in the world’s toughest places.
• Mercy Corps interventions are focused on 3 major areas of Conflict mitigation, Humanitarian Response and Adolescent Girls Empowerment.
• Mercy Corps Nigeria is currently implementing three adolescent girl-focused programs namely ENGINE (Educating Nigerian Girls in New Enterprises), GOAL (Girls Opportunities for Advancing Literacy) and ASSETS (Accelerating Savings and Strengthening Entrepreneurship through Training and Skill-building) in Kano, Kaduna, Federal Capital Territory and Lagos.
• The ENGINE project provides a unique opportunity for beneficiaries to use the learning acquired to work and increase their economic assets.
• To achieve this the project ensures a balance on the demand and supply component of its program.
• The demand focuses on providing quality business, life skills and financial education training to marginalized girls while the supply ensures linkages to economic assets.
• There are two major economic assets established on ENGINE; Coca-Cola micro-retailing and D.light solar lamp marketing.
• Some of the project beneficiaries have been trained on and are receiving mentoring on product knowledge, selling skills business logistics cycles, supplies and replenishments, and after-sales service. As the project enters into the second cycle, it is necessary to identify other work options to make available varied economic opportunities for the beneficiaries.
• Mercy Corps seeks the services of a Consultant with technical expertise in value chain management & linkages to carry out a mapping of value chains that have relevance for adolescent girls.

Primary Duties

• The consultant will assess available value chains that exist within the food & agricultural, clothing & textile, communication, transport and micro retailing sectors. The consultant will select value chains that have the following characteristics:
  
  • Mutually beneficial for both the organization and project beneficiaries.
  • Has innovative products and processes.
  • Adds value for producers, consumers and other value chains within a competitive environment.
• The consultant will facilitate linkages between MercyCorps and the managers of identified value chains.
• Ensure that an agreement is signed between MercyCorps and the identified value chains.
• Work out the strategy by which beneficiaries will be integrated into the identified value chains.
• Facilitate linkages between the beneficiaries and identified value chain organisations.

Scope of Work With Timelines of Activities For Value Chain Mapping:

• The mapping will be carried out in the four focal states and intended to last a period of nineteen (19) working days. Three (3) days will be dedicated to desk review while sixteen (16) days will be allocated to field work and report writing. It is recommended that as much information as possible should be extracted during the desk review to reduce the burden on field visits.

Skills:
The selected consultant must be

• An expert in value chain mapping, relationship dynamics and analysis.
• An expert in the areas of development interventions using value chains especially in adolescent girls and women programming.
• An expert with proven skills and ability for engaging with private and public sector players including business owners in the sector.
• Good communication and interpersonal skills.
• Should have good report writing skills.

Competencies
The selected consultant will demonstrate the following competencies:

• Thorough knowledge of and expertise on value chain development interventions; a working knowledge on adolescent girls programming will be an advantage.
• Proven experience in engaging with a wide range of stakeholders.
• Ability to work autonomously and attention to detail.