Job Description

Project Tittle: Catalyzing Economic Development in the Informal Sector (CEDIS)
Title/Name of Activity: Productive Use of Renewable Market Assessment
Period of the Activity: January 2024
Background
With funding from the Embassy of Sweden, Mercy Corps is implementing the Catalyzing Economic Development through the Informal Sector (CEDIS) programme in the urban and surrounding rural areas of Bulawayo, Mutare, and Harare. The 4-year programme aims to improve incomes, working conditions and resilience to shocks and stresses of 30,000 vulnerable young women (70% aged 18-35) through sustainable informal and micro-enterprise livelihoods. The CEDIS programme takes a human-centered design approach, tackling the challenges faced by women engaging in the informal economy, while strengthening urban and rural relations in target regions, with an emphasis on improving the quality of work and increasing women’s access to better jobs. Using a systems approach, the CEDIS programme works with market actors to facilitate improvements in job quality for women, their access to the market, market services, and women-led enterprises, and an improved enabling environment for women in the informal economy.
Purpose of the Assessment
As part of the value chains to be supported by CEDIS, Mercy Corps identified the productive use of renewable energy as a key sub-sector that holds potential for improving the resilience of informal and micro-enterprises. This was based on a market assessment study carried out by Mercy Corps. Mercy Corps would now like to conduct a deep-dive study into the productive use of renewable energy sub-sector, with the aim of understanding supply and demand dynamics - the suppliers on the market, their capacities, challenges, and the demand opportunities around PURE.
Mercy Corps is therefore looking for a qualified consultant to assess and quantify the renewable energy potential in value chains. This work will assess supply chains and business cases and make key programmatic recommendations. A key part of this study will include collecting data from key stakeholders (farmers, processors, and traders etc) to understand processing activities and their need for energy and the financial viability to electrify for both the micro-entrepreneurs.
Objective of the Assignment
The key objective is to collect information and develop insights to define which appliances and activities could be energized to increase value and income for small businesses. The study also seeks to explore the size of the market segment (target customers), their needs and capacities, current level of operation, products required and affordability. The findings and recommendations will enable design of more impactful interventions by the identified partners that increase the productive use of renewable energy as a growth enabler for the informal sectors.

Duties and Responsibilities

Scope of Work (Consultant Activities)
The scope of work of the consultant will include, but not be limited to, the following tasks:

a. Value chains and business cases
-Identify value chains (non-agriculture) currently mechanized or manual activities that could be electrified
-Map out sub-economic segments that occur in the targeted locations, their needs, capacities, current energy usage patterns, possible number of units required (size of market) and what new activities could be relocated to local communities to capture additional value using Renewable Energy.
-Understand potential load profiles of electrified activities.
-Evaluate top five productive use cases and develop financial business case to understand implications to small business entrepreneurs by defining additional revenues and costs and potential markets or off-takers. The goal is to determine whether they can be operated profitably and what potential barriers to scale are associated with the product. The financial business case should be constructed using data collected from interviews conducted in the field; or with operators of similar technologies and end-users such as agroprocessors. Each business should be modeled using cost and revenue data users, third party research, and suppliers etc.
-The business cases should then be evaluated based on criteria that reveals the attractiveness of investing in the productive-use business, such as unit economics and other financial metrics; desirability of products and services for end-users and the viability of the product to scale.
-Based on the business cases, make concrete recommendations about whether each of the five technologies is scalable and to identify circumstances necessary for scaling
b. Household appliance opportunities
-Identify at the household level key appliance aspirations including those which could be used for business opportunities.
-Understand potential load profiles of these appliances.
-Evaluate the top five appliance aspirations and cost implications, determine the affordability of these appliances by households including access to finance opportunities.
c. Productive use equipment supply chain mapping
-Based on the top 5 productive use and household cases, develop an extensive map of appliance (productive use and household) availability and acquisition at local, regional and national level. These could be local manufactures or importers of such appliances. The mapping should include information on production capacity, company details, appliances supplied etc.
-Evaluate the quality of these appliances against key national or international quality standards.
-Evaluate the capacity and appetite of the appliance manufacturers or importers to venture (to establish branches and service clients) into the targeted locations. This includes their capacity to provide after-sales services.
-Evaluate the product pricing, affordability by women in the informal sector and appropriate repayment mechanisms employed by the suppliers.
-Identify what de-risking mechanisms would be appropriate to encourage suppliers to extend their services to the project areas.
-Identify gender prevalence within the different productive use activities
d. Understand barriers and opportunities entrepreneurs face to develop insights that can be scaled to other communities and regions.
Deliverables
The expected deliverables from the consultant are as follows:
- An inception report detailing the following:
-Methodology for the assignment, including sample size,
-Data collection tool/questionnaire
-Work plan (1 week after initial engagement).
- Detailed report of the assessment, including detailing the findings and conclusions (1 week after research).
-Business cases of the top 5 recommended PURE appliances
- Recommendations Intervention Design: Based on findings, propose tailored interventions and strategies to enhance the adoption of renewable energy in the informal sectors.

Timeline
The consultant is expected to complete the market assessment and deliver the final report within a month.

Reporting
The consultant will work closely and report directly to Mercy Corps Regional Coordinator Fadzai Chari and Intervention Lead Farai Makwara. Regular progress reports will be required to ensure that the assessment is aligned with expectations.
Budget
The budget for consultant is USD$ 6000 and they are expected to submit a proposed research plan and budget for approval prior to commencing the market assessment. The budget should include all costs associated with data collection, analysis, report writing, and presentation.

Qualifications and Experience

Required Experience, Skills and Qualifications
The consultant should possess the following qualifications:
-Previous experience in conducting assessments, market research or similar assessments.
-Proven track record in market analysis
- Familiarity with working in or studying informal sectors, understanding their dynamics, challenges, and opportunities related to adopting renewable energy solutions.
- Strong ability to gather and analyze data, both quantitative and qualitative, using various research methodologies, tools, and statistical analysis.
-- Excellent communication and report writing abilities.
- Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively with stakeholders and deliver high-quality results within agreed timelines.
- Proficiency in relevant languages spoken within the target community or region might be advantageous for effective communication and engagements

Note: The consultant's proposals should include information on their relevant experience, proposed methodology, timeline, and budget.
The call
Mercy Corps is inviting interested individuals and companies to submit an
Expression of Interest for the Productive Use of Renewable Market Assessment for the SIDA funded CEDIS Program in Manicaland, Harare and Mateleland South, Bulawayo Urban and peri-urban for a period of 1 month from 1 February to 28 February 2024.

How to Apply

Applications should include the following:
o Expression of interest outlining how the consultant(s) meets the selection
criteria and their understanding of the ToR and methodology.
o Proposed methods and activities schedule/work plan with time frame.
o Company profile/ CV of the consultant(s) who will undertake the evaluation.
o Company registration including tax clearance.
o Sample/links of similar and recent evaluation report (baseline/endline) written
by the applicant.
o Financial proposal detailing consultant(s) itemized fees for setting up, data
collection, analysis, reporting and administrative costs
All applications and queries to be sent by email [email protected] on or before 25 January 2024
with Subject line: Productive Use of Renewable Market Assessment

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