Consultancy service for value chain and market systems assessment

Background

Mercy Corps is an international humanitarian and development organization whose mission is to reduce suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build secure, productive and just communities. The organization has been operating in Ethiopia since 2004, working in rural, peri-urban and urban areas in five regional states: Somali, Oromia, Afar, Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples, Amhara and Addis Ababa City Administration.  We engage in both development and humanitarian work, and seek to integrate approaches, programs and geographies as much as possible.  Our partners include government, academic institutions, development and private sector actors, civil societies and participating public.

Shocks and stresses are a frequent occurrence in the lowlands of Ethiopia. Environmental shocks, including drought, flooding, Desert locust, animal and human disease outbreaks, alongside conflict shocks, often undermine the development gains made at household and market levels. Recent droughts have ravaged the lowlands regions, resulting in widespread livestock loss and income drops. Incidents of violence and recurrent inter-ethnic conflict are also prevalent, creating downstream disruptions, including destruction of livestock assets, market closures, food shortages, displacement, and psycho-social trauma, which negatively impact resilience capacities and all aspects of individual, household, and community well-being. The current COVID-19 pandemic has further weakened the coping capacities of the low land communities. Both environmental and conflict related shocks and stresses must be addressed in an integrated manner.

Mercy Corps and CARE through funding from USAID Feed the Future, is implementing Resilience in Pastoral Areas (RiPA-North cluster) that aims to improve the resilience capacities of households, markets and governance institutions across the Somali, Afar and Oromia regions target woredas, collectively contributing to enhanced food security and inclusive economic growth for over 129,000 households. The program activities are categorized under four main component areas. Which are:

Component 1 : Improved disaster risk management systems and capacity;

Component 2: Diversified and sustainable economic opportunities for people       Transitioning Out of Pastoralism (TOPs);

Component 3: Intensified and sustained pastoral and agro-pastoral production and marketing; and

Component 4: Improved and Sustained Nutrition and hygiene Practices.

This TOR is prepared to recruit consultancy service providers to conduct in-depth Value chain and market assessments under Component 2 and 3 key thematic areas highlighted above.

The overarching rationale for contracting the value chain and market system assessment assignment is to primarily identify underlying root causes that are affecting (positively and negatively) the selected critical markets; for livestock, crop and diversified economic opportunities.

Secondly, to identify relevant, feasible, sustainable, and Climate-smart, nutrition, and gender-sensitive market intervention areas and market-based activities that pastoral and agro-pastoral HHs particularly ToPs (youth and women) and market actors should focus on in order to contribute to building the resilience of HHs and markets.

Thus, Mercy Corps is seeking to recruit qualified consultancy firm/s to conduct value chain and market systems assessments to accomplish the following objectives.