Engagement of Consultant for the Provision of Adhoc MEAL and Program Support at Mercy Corps

Project Description

• Mercy Corps has been present in Nigeria since 2012, focusing its interventions on humanitarian assistance, economic recovery and development, conflict mitigation and peacebuilding. Considering the protracted conflicts between farmer and herder communities in Adamawa State, Nigeria, competing claims to land, water and other natural resources are at the root of these growing tensions.
• Indeed, pressure on natural resources has increased due to demographic growth, expanding human settlements, overgrazing, erosion, privatization of land, year-round farming practices, environmental degradation, and climate change. In many instances, traditional conflict resolution mechanisms that play significant roles in mitigating these resource-based conflicts locally have become overwhelmed.
• Besides, low levels of trust in authorities by communities due to widespread inaction, impunity and perceived biases or reactive responses by the government to shared natural resource conflicts complicate the tensions further.
• Through funding from the EU, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Search for Common Ground (Search), and Mercy Corps have designed a comprehensive and integrated approach (COMITAS) that builds on the comparative strengths of each organization to contribute to the mitigation of conflicts over natural resources between farmer and herder communities. This program is developed around 4 interconnected objectives:
  • Strengthen traditional conflict resolution.
  • Improve trust in authorities.
  • Enhance collaboration on natural resource management and
  • Improve intra and inter-communal perceptions.
• Mercy Corps is leading the implementation of objective 3, which focuses on enhancing collaboration on natural resource management. Mercy Corps aims to build the capacity of local government authorities in natural resource management (NRM) to facilitate their collaboration with communities towards sustaining concrete natural resource initiatives that communities will develop.
• The collaborations that the program is enabling between communities and authorities will improve communities’ trust and confidence in government, promote collaborative natural resource management and governance, enhance livelihoods, and improve social cohesion and conflict management between farmer and herder communities in Adamawa and Taraba states.

Position Objectives

• Mercy Corps COMITAS project seeks highly motivated individuals who believe deeply in Mercy Corps mission and can display a record of results and achievement of working closely with community/traditional leaders and institutions to support local peacebuilding initiatives in various local contexts, especially in programing and data collection.
• Consultant will have the responsibility of conducting interviews and facilitating community-level information gathering to compile insight on conflict dynamics, mainly as they are related to resource-based violence.
• Different criteria include but not limited to experience working in the project locations and carrying out our relevant research activities, previous engagement with key stakeholders/gatekeepers of target communities as well as a contextual understanding of and familiarity with the local language of defined project area would be important for working as a consultant for the COMITAS grant.
• Also, consultant will support Mercy Corps COMITAS program data collection for reconnaissance surveys, Baseline, Midline, and end-line surveys, perception surveys, dispute and conflict tracking, and community-level conflict analysis workshops.

Role of the Consultant
Under the direction of the Program Officer and Meal senior officer, the consultant will provide overall support to the program and Meal teams in the day-to-day implementation of all program activities in the areas of intervention.

• Support program team to ensure COMITAS progress according to the developed schedule and the implementation work plan.
• Support the program team to plan, organize and conduct quality community trainings, sessions and document the process, content delivered and identify indicators that you will monitor.
• Support in the process of beneficiary registration, community mobilization and sensitization.
• Assist in the facilitation of community meetings, focus group discussion and other as required by the program.
• Compile, record, and code information derived from specified forms into a predefined form or database.
• Ensure that the supervisor is kept abreast of completed assignments and progress.
• Identify and report any issues that may arise while attempting to obtain valid data.
• Interpret interview questions to assist respondents in understanding them and providing eloquent answers.
• Double check information on survey forms or information pads to ensure the accuracy of information.
• Engage in data entry in cases where paper base options are used.
• Comply with quality and research ethics during field work (this includes data protection and information confidentiality of respondents or target project participants).
• Participate in debriefing sessions to share field experiences about the community and entire data collection/workshop/community activities.
• Consultant are expected to be always respectful of the community and community leadership and membership.

Deliverable(s):

• Share field notes and tools as they are available with the Mercy Corps Research team.
• Type field notes to Excel or word and share them daily.
• Interview summaries.
• Pictures and reports from workshops and interviews.

Reporting and Supervision:

• Reports directly to: Program Officer and Monitoring Evaluation and Learning Senior Officer, working closely with COMITAS Program Team.

Basic Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities Required

• A University Degree or HND in any field.
• Recent (last two years) experience participating in conflict-related research activities.
• Experience in conducting quantitative and qualitative research in the Northern part of Nigeria.
• Experience working in the selected communities and a good understanding of the local dialects is preferred.
• Experience in data collection and analysis using participatory methodology with basic GIS skills.
• Possess a degree of flexibility to work and availability to respond to comments and questions promptly and appropriately.
• Strong command of English, Fulfulde, and Hausa, especially the ability to write high-quality, clear, and concise reports.
• High regard for cultural norms and traditions.
• Demonstrate patience and good leadership skills.