Field Enumerator at Mercy Corps

Program /Department Summary
With funding from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (USAID/OFDA), Mercy Corps is collaborating with Action Against Hunger, Catholic Relief Services, Cooperazione Internazionale, International Rescue Committee and Oxfam to conduct a joint six-month Livelihoods and Market Recovery Assessment in North East Nigeria. The assessment aims to:

• Understand market systems dynamics across three conflict-afflicted states-Borno, Adamawa and Yobe;
• Identifying constraints and opportunities to enable market systems to strengthen economic coping, facilitate market recovery, and increase livelihood opportunities for conflict-affected communities;
• Identify approaches to facilitate local market recovery.
• LMR partners have identified 4 market systems (cowpeas, cereals {maize, sorghum, millet}, vegetables and agricultural inputs) and cross-cutting areas (transport & infrastructure, access to finance and the effect of aid distribution) as the focus of the assessment.
• LMR partners are collecting and analysing data to determine whether the market systems can be adapted to ultimately improve income generation, food security, nutrition and protection for vulnerable conflict-afflicted households in rural and urban areas in North East Nigeria.

Position Objective/ Purpose

• Enumerators with past experience working with INGOs and UN Agencies in similar capacities will be recruited in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe state in order to get quality data and gain easy access to the LGAs.

Scope of work / Responsibilities
The enumerators will be engaged primarily to assist Mercy Corps in the tasks related to information gathering but not limited to:
Access to land:

• Do farmers have access to land?
• Are farmers able to plant on all of their land or do they only use accessible land for a limited period of time? (If so, how many seasons? are they IDPs?)
• GPS co-ordinates of areas where farming activity can occur-colour-coded physical maps
• Issues on restrictions on land access-including restrictions placed by the military on the amount of land available for farming
• The type of soil available in the three States and its suitability for farming.

Status of grain storage in the North-East:

• What type of storage facilities exist, who owns them (State or Federal Government, farmer owned, community owned, or 'private' storage {owned by input supplier, input distributors or transporters})
• What are the gaps with grain storage at State and LGA-level?

Status of marketplaces:

• What marketplaces have been destroyed, which are safe enough to rebuild and identify locations where market infrastructure marked for restoration would not be vulnerable to insurgent/AOG destruction?

Inputs distribution networks:

• Identify inputs distribution networks in the state capital and LGAs (At least 5-10 larger distributors of seeds and agrochemicals in the main towns)
• Who are their major customers in the LGAs? How far their supplies reach.

Qualifications and Personal Attributes

• Qualifications in the fields of the Social Sciences, Economics, Development Studies or Statistics.
• A sound track record in developing and conducting research
• Proven skills in the use of mobile device for data collection
• Experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative research.
• Experience working in the communities in either Borno, Adamawa or Yobe, and a good understanding of the local dialects is preferred.
• Experience in data collection and analysis using participatory methodology.
• Possess a degree of flexibility to work and availability to respond to comments and questions in a timely and appropriate manner.
• Strong command over English and Hausa, especially ability to write high quality, clear and concise reports.
• Candidates who reside or are familiar with the local communities in the targeted LGAs are strongly encouraged to apply.