Market Systems Assessment - Breakwater Tender, USA - 43790088

Procurement Summary

Country : USA

Summary : Market Systems Assessment - Breakwater

Deadline : 10 Jul 2020

Other Information

Notice Type : Tender

TOT Ref.No.: 43790088

Document Ref. No. : DAP/CS/MC-BKO/0006/2020

Competition : ICB

Financier : Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA)

Purchaser Ownership : -

Tender Value : Refer Document

Purchaser's Detail

Purchaser : MERCY CORPS
Dept. W National Processing Center P.O. Box 80020 Prescott, AZ 86304-9801 Tel: (888) 842-0842
USA
Email :questions-passation@mercycorps.org / tenders@mercycorps.org / demandedap@mercycorps.org
URL :https://www.mercycorps.org/

Tender Details

Request for proposals are invited for Market Systems Assessment - Breakwater.

RFP: Market Systems Assessment - Breakwater

Mercy Corps is a non-religious, non-profit and non-governmental international humanitarian organization that helps people affected by crises transform their situations into opportunities to realize their potential. Starting operations in Mali in 2012 in the north to provide emergency assistance to populations affected by the crisis and food shortages, Mercy Corps has quickly expanded its portfolio to across six regions (Segou, Koulikoro, Kayes, Mopti, Tombouctou and Menaka) and into a wide range of emergency, economic recovery, and peacebuilding program.

Drawing all of these sectors together is the BREAKWATER project, which aims to prevent the further spread of violent conflict in Central and Southern Mali. Funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and operating from 01 January 2020 to 31 December 2023, it addresses contemporary and historical root causes of conflict in communities situated on the frontier between the relatively stable South and the most volatile parts of the Centre, while ensuring that conflicts which rise to the surface are peacefully mitigated through local systems wherever possible. The programme will work to overcome natural resource management challenges, the breakdown of inter-ethnic relations and traditional mechanisms for conflict resolution, economic drivers of conflict, and a broken social contract between citizens and the state. The programme-s overarching goal is focused on increasing human security among the populations in these zones through the identification and successful resolution of widespread and crosscutting challenges to the survival, livelihood and dignity of people.

Country of destination:

Mali

Open date:

Jun 26, 2020, 7:00am to Jul 10, 2020, 11:00pm


Project/Consultancy Title: Market Systems Assessment Consultant
Project Location(s): Segou, Koulikoro regions, Mali

Background

Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible.
In disaster, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, we partner to put bold solutions
into action — helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within.
Now, and for the future. Mercy Corps has been present in Mali since 2012, responding to emergency needs stemming from conflict and displacement, while continuing work to build more resilient, peaceful, and productive communities. Over this period, through various programmes implemented through funding from USAID, GAC, UNPBF, EU, private donors and others Mercy Corps has built a strong team that has both institutional memory as well as best practice approaches in relation to peacebuilding, conflict prevention, economic development and sustainable and resilient agricultural practices.

At the core of Mercy Corps Mali-s peacebuilding approach is the belief that conflict prevention and resilience programming - supporting farmers, pastoralists and broader market-based economic development - are two sides of the same coin. Peacebuilding, conflict prevention and social cohesion programming can mitigate some degree of conflict, but on their own are often limited in scope and fail to address root causes of conflict. On the other hand, hard fought gains in economic development can be eroded overnight by the impact of violence, as entire communities become displaced and livelihoods shattered. In an environment as complex as Mali, increasingly characterized by a crowded and poorly coordinated field of localized mediation interventions, the integration of peacebuilding and resilience is not just an added-value, but a necessity.

Similarly, while a community-centered approach is important - and the long-standing presence of Mercy Corps resilience teams in the north reflects this - overly localized programs lack the scale and ambition to be truly impactful and sustainable. Market systems in Mali, having the potential to both erode or catalyse impact, depending on how they are harnessed, are all too often overlooked, leading resilience programmes to consist of a smattering of community-level livelihoods interventions that lead to limited impact. Programmes that connect the various local, regional and national level offer the possibility of better approach to Mali-s longstanding livelihood challenges.

This approach underpins the BREAKWATER project, which aims to prevent the further spread of violent conflict in Central and Southern Mali. Funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) and operating from 01 January 2020 to 31 December 2023, it addresses contemporary and historical root causes of conflict in communities situated on the frontier between the relatively stable South and the most volatile parts of the Centre, while ensuring that conflicts which rise to the surface are peacefully mitigated through local systems wherever possible. The programme will work to overcome natural resource management challenges, the breakdown of inter-ethnic relations and traditional mechanisms for conflict resolution, economic drivers of conflict, and a broken social contract between citizens and the state. The programme-s goal is focused on increasing human security among the populations in these zones through the identification and successful resolution of widespread and crosscutting challenges to the survival, livelihood and dignity of people. BREAKWATER is being implemented by Mercy Corps, International Alert and Humanity & Inclusion, and will run for four years, reaching 60, 912 beneficiaries/participants across 130 communities where the risk of the spread of violent conflict is greatest and where potential to build on positive local capacities provides opportunity for demonstrable impact.


Purpose / Project Description
To inform the BREAKWATER project, Mercy Corps aims to conduct a market systems assessment, likely focused on the livestock and agriculture market systems, to support program design and inform opportunities to integrate Market Systems Development (MSD) into conflict prevention programming to best create the systemic level change we aspire to. Given the core goal of the programme relates to increasing human security, this assignment and assessment will serve as the basis for understanding which market systems have the highest potential for increasing incomes while supporting peacebuilding goals via mitigating the long-term economic drivers of conflict.

In particular, BREAKWATER-s market systems assessment is designed to support and inform the second outcome of the BREAKWATER program, “Improved individual, household and community capacity to offset economic and environmental drivers of human insecurity”. It will inform the application of Mercy Corps- Making Markets Work in Crisis approach, a key component of our overall resilience-building approach in conflict-affected and protracted crises contexts. BREAKWATER will refine Outcome 2 based on the assessment and the resulting analysis during the inception phase (01 January to 30 September 2020). Given the challenging environment and ongoing humanitarian situation, we anticipate needing to sequence, layer and integrate some direct delivery mechanisms with facilitation tactics to support coping through local systems.

Outcome 2 of the BREAKWATER program has two mutually reinforcing outputs focused on supporting community-level agro-pastoral livelihoods and scaling and solidifying localized gains. To ensure that the primary livelihoods among target communities - which include agriculture, pastoralism and (for some) fishing - offer better yields and income in the face of environmental, climate and economic shocks, the market systems analysis will be closely linked with a natural resource management and governance assessment. Under the current design of the program, the team anticipates some market related activities may include, for example: (1) strengthening post-harvest value-addition through facilitating technical training for a small subset of producer groups, concentrating on commodities where producers are in a prime position to secure higher prices and markets for their production through processing and value-addition that can be done by the groups themselves; (2) supporting agricultural input enterprises (e.g. those who provide the seeds and tools) and processors/offtakers (those who purchase the final crop/vegetable/fruit/animal products) to provide services to producers and to buy from producers; and (3) making targeted investments to strengthen leverage points that promote market competitiveness, profitability and ability to scale of existing off-farm micro-enterprises in selected value chains.

The MSD assessment is designed to confirm or challenge the proposal-s assumptions and methodology by identifying constraints and opportunities to enable market systems to strengthen economic coping, facilitate market recovery, and increase livelihood opportunities for conflict-affected communities and identify approaches to facilitate local market recovery. The consultant will lead the assessment including assessment design, data collection and analysis, as well as a synthesis process to determine intervention points focused on improving income and food security for value-chains and markets with known implication to conflict dynamics. The consultant will be responsible for planning and implementation to produce a series of comprehensive reports for public dissemination.

Consultant Objectives
The consultant will work in Mali during August and September 2020. S/he will be responsible for the overall design of the assessment, Mercy Corps team capacity building, assessment implementation, and production of the assessment reports. S/he will closely work with the BREAKWATER Program Director, Director of Program and MEL Advisor as well as the Mercy Corps

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