Consultant - Development of ADFII Sustainability Plan - Remote

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. Mercy Corps’ AgriFin Digital Farmer (ADF II) program will work to reach five million smallholder farmers across Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Nigeria - 40% of whom are women - living on less than $2.00 per day, who will utilize DFS and/or DIS as a result of this project. In partnership with Bill and Melinda Gates and Bayer Foundations, ADF 2 seeks to support the expansion of digitally enabled services to 5 million smallholder farmers, delivered by growing ecosystems of diverse service providers and building farmer income, productivity, and resilience by 50% while reaching 40% women.  ADF II will continue to target farmers who work across a wide variety of crop, livestock and fish value chains, most of whom have diversified production systems growing multiple crops for both home consumption and sale. The program is expected to have positive impacts on farmers and direct partners providing services to farmers and ecosystem actors adopting learnings from program activities. Results and learning from this body of work can be found on the www.mercycorpsagrifin.org website.

One of the main deliverables that we expect to produce as part of the ADF II program is the development of a sustainability plan to ensure the program’s sustainability beyond the four-year grant. One key area of focus for this piece of work is the design and development of the ADFII sustainability plan. As part of this ADFII sustainability plan, the AgriFin Program also plans to expand into new geographies, the program and get the opportunity to support partners expand their reach into new markets and support burgeoning agritech and fintech. However, as part of this program, the approach needs to ensure that the growth and expansion is sustainable, without adversely affecting the scaling support the program is currently engaged in.

The ADF II sustainability plan is closely aligned with the Mercy Corps Agrifin Global Expansion Strategy, and the outputs from this strategy will provide additional guidance and inputs into the ADF II sustainability plan.

Purpose / Project Description:

The purpose of this engagement is to engage a consultant for the development of the ADFII sustainability plan informed by the review and revision of the AgriFin Global Expansion Strategy. This will be done by assessing the various income generation and fund streams, revising the country assessment and readiness index metrics, updating the data for the assessment, and recommending countries to support an ADFII sustainable expansion. The consultant will validate the strategy with the AgriFin team and will develop the implementation plan (AgriFin expansion strategy implementation roadmap) that will help the AgriFin team to implement the expansion plan.

Consultant Activities:

The consultant will engage with the AgriFin team across the following key activities:

1. Design and development of ADFII sustainability plan
2. Review and update the expansion strategy
3. Validation of the strategy
4. Develop an AgriFin expansion strategy implementation plan

Consultant Deliverables:

The consultant will work to produce the following deliverables, in close collaboration with the AgriFin SMT:

1. Work Plan for the engagement, including proposed timelines for the listed activities
2. Revise the MCAF readiness index and country segmentation model that assesses countries and select geographies for expansion
3. Hold validation session with the MCAF SMT team to review the readiness index and opportunity analysis, refining thinking and developing initial directions for MCAF strategy.
4. Prepare country profiles for the top 25 countries for expansion, prioritizing the top 10 countries for MCAF to focus on first as part of the expansion
5. Design a global expansion sustainability plan
6. Develop an implementation plan for the global expansion strategy, and sustainability plan, including timelines.

Timeframe / Schedule:

The Timeframe will be between March 25th - October 15th, 2023

April 7, 2023:

Design AgriFin ADF II sustainability plan:

• Design and development of ADFII sustainability plan informed by review and revision of AgriFin Global expansion. Activities:
  • Ramp up and prepare a work plan for the engagement including proposed timelines for the listed activities
  • Assess potential revenue-generating sources/areas for the AgriFin program with identified key elements of monetization i.e., assessing the landscape of Sprout, Accelerator, etc. digital agri hub, etc.
  • Design/propose a set of cost sharing, revenue/equity sharing, or other international best practices that the global expansion can incorporate to ensure the sustainability of the program and depend less on donor funding. Ex. https://agfunder.com/portfolio/
  • Develop ADF II sustainability criteria/framework for global expansion (to feed into the expansion strategy)

May 20, 2023:

Review and update the expansion strategy:

• Revise the Mercy Corps AgriFin (MCAF) readiness index and country segmentation model that assesses countries and select geographies for expansion, including high-potential markets where Mercy Corps may choose to expand, potentially working with contracted data analysis consultant, to be managed by the Mercy Corps AgriFin Global Strategy Lead. Activities:

• Prepare a work plan for the engagement including proposed timelines for the listed activities

• Update/ review the country assessment metrics that will be used to develop a scorecard for the countries

• Conduct interviews with key MCAF staff on the assessment and the prioritization metrics

• Data collection and analysis

• Prepare scorecards for the countries with prioritization

June 5, 2023:

Validation of the scorecards and the prioritized countries:

• Hold validation session with MCAF Senior Management Team (SMT) team to review the prioritized countries and suggest a potential approach for expansion. Activities:
  • Conduct country prioritization
  • Validate the prioritized countries with selected AgriFin team members

July 10, 2023:

Country profiles for the top recommended countries:

• Prepare country profiles for the top 10 recommended countries for MCAF expansion. Activities:
  • Data collection for the selected countries
  • Prepare a country profile for the countries

August 15, 2023:

Develop AgriFin expansion strategy implementation plan:

• Develop an implementation plan for the global expansion strategy, including timelines. Activities:
  • Prepare a roadmap for the implementation listing out the activities
  • List out the success factors, potential risks, and mitigation strategies for the countries

Payments will be made based on days capped at a maximum number of 70 days from March 25th to October 15th, 2023

The Consultant will report to:

Mercy Corps AgriFin’s D-CSA Director, AgriFin SMT, in collaboration with AgriFin Technical Team,

The Consultant will work closely with:

Mercy Corps AgriFin’s Technical Team and Mercy Corps SMT

Required Experience & Skills:

The individual consultant must demonstrate significant experience and expertise in:

1. 5-10 years of experience in a technically relevant field.
2. At least 3 years of experience in the field of Agriculture in a governmental, or non-governmental organization or a reputable international or national organization preferred.
3. Understanding of and work experience in the agricultural sector.
4. Excellent Computer, verbal, and written communication skills, including report development, writing, and editing.
5. Excellent interpersonal skills.
6. Highly proactive and self-disciplined.
7. Experience and ability to work in a multicultural, multinational team.
8. Experience with monitoring and evaluation of projects.
9. Demonstrated analytical and problem-solving skills.
10. Demonstrated experience in project management skills.
11. Demonstrated attention to detail, ability to follow procedures, meet deadlines and work independently and cooperatively with team members.

Required Application documents:

• Resume and cover letter including the Daily rate quotation in USD.

**Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
**Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening, and evolving to become more diverse, equitable, and inclusive than we are today.

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Safeguarding & EthicsMercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our stakeholders and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring, and evaluation of our field projects. Team members are expected to conduct themselves professionally and respect local laws, customs and MC's policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.