Consultant – CARM database and Information Management System, Discovery Phase – 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.

Community Accountability Reporting Mechanisms – known as CARM – was developed as part of Mercy Corps’ global commitment to accountability to affected populations and the prevention of all forms of exploitation and abuse. CARM is a channel for any and all community members to provide feedback, suggestions, complaints, and concerns, in a manner that is safe, confidential, transparent, and accessible, enabling Mercy Corps to respond and make any necessary programmatic or safeguarding adaptations and to ensure the safety, security, and empowerment of program participants.

Mercy Corps’ first CARM policy was approved in 2020 and applies to Mercy Corps Global, Mercy Corps Europe and Mercy Corps Netherlands, their subsidiaries and affiliate organizations, and country representation (collectively, “Mercy Corps”); and Partners, including sub-recipients, partner organizations, contractors, consultants and any other organization or individual that acts on Mercy Corps’ behalf (collectively, “Partners”). This policy applies to all programs and/or projects that Mercy Corps or Partners implement to support program stakeholders, regardless of scope, scale, size, time, budget or funding source.

Purpose / Project Description:

In the first phase of CARM policy adoption, 2020-2021, Mercy Corps country teams worked towards meeting the minimum standards, including development of a CARM database with mandatory fields for documenting and responding to feedback, development of SOPs for handling feedback through the CARM workflow, and the use of standardized feedback grades.

A global consultation period in early 2022 sought to explore what tools and platforms teams are using to manage the CARM workflow. It also sought to engage teams – who were identified as in process, or planning to – automate CARM workflow processes and reporting, to better understand their business needs, and identify possible next steps.

The main output of the consultation period was the compelling need presented by teams, globally, to develop efficiencies in the manual handling of CARM data (individual pieces of community feedback), which will contribute to the timely response and closure of the feedback loop with community members and stakeholders, while minimizing data protection risks. The consultation also identified teams’ requirement to have dynamic reporting capability on the performance of CARM in each country (monitoring volume of feedback disaggregated by age, gender, case closure times, etc) and dynamic reporting on trends in CARM feedback to inform adaptive portfolio and program management.

In mid 2022, Mercy Corps has started the discovery phase of a new project – working name ‘CARM database and information management system’ – to explore if there is a scalable technology solution that can be made available, globally, that meets teams’ needs in the varied and dynamic environment in which Mercy Corps and our partners work.

Consultant Objectives:

The objective of the consultancy is to support the Mercy Corps team in refining system requirements and clearly articulating detailed business and systems requirements to enable the team to identify and select an appropriate, scalable solution.

Consultant Activities:

To meet the objective, the Consultant will:

1. Review global consultation report and supporting notes from FGDs and KIIs (from early 2022); 2. Review existing outputs of cross organizational working group (from mid 2022);
2. Plan inputs, facilitate, and document the outputs of cross organizational working group meetings; 4. Conduct bi-lateral meetings with system users and functional experts, as needed, to refine system requirements; 5. Iterate all draft deliverables listed below in consultation with the working group and the project team until final deliverables are agreed.

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will deliver:

1. Finalized system requirements;
2. Detailed supporting business and systems and process maps.

Timeframe / Schedule:

Activities:

1. Activity 1 and 2: Between Monday 31 October and Friday 4 November;
2. Activity 3 and 4: Between Monday 31 October and Friday 25 November;
3. Activity 5: Between Friday 25 November and Friday 9 December.

Deliverables:

1. Draft deliverables 1-2: Submitted by Friday 25th November;
2. Final deliverables 1-2: Submitted by Friday 9th December.

The total duration for the Consultancy is expected to not exceed 30 working days.

The Consultant will report to:

1. Senior Global Advisor – Community Accountability (based in the UK)

The Consultant will work closely with:

1. Project team;
2. Cross organizational working group of system users and functional experts;
3. Other country level system users or related roles, as needed to fulfill the scope.

Required Experience & Skills:

1. 5-10 years of experience in a technically relevant field;
2. Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field (Masters degree desirable);
3. Demonstrable experience in the development sector;
4. Demonstrated knowledge of international standards and frameworks related to process improvement/mapping;
5. Demonstrable experience in formulating and articulating systems requirements, and seeing this through to a scalable tech solution;
6. Demonstrated knowledge of community accountability in the development sector desired but not essential;
7. Proficiency with MS Office software (Word, Excel, PowerPoint), and Google suite (Google drive, docs, sheets);
8. High level of fluency in verbal and written English.

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.

Equal Employment Opportunity

We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics

Mercy 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 in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.