Consultant – Climate Change and Market Systems – Remote

Background:

Mercy Corps is a humanitarian and development organization working to alleviate suffering, poverty, and oppression by helping people build secure, productive, and just communities. The agency has just undergone a strategy development process, which highlights Economic Opportunities as one of 4 key outcomes, and climate change as a central cross-cutting factor to address through programming. Systems approaches, including market systems, are core to how the agency will achieve its goals.

Purpose / Project Description:

The purpose of this consultancy is to support Mercy Corps in realizing its niche in supporting climate-smart economic opportunities and market systems development approaches. The consultant will review Mercy Corps programs to date that address the intersection of climate change effects and economic opportunities and draft approach doc, PowerPoint presentation, and 2 case studies. The consultant will also interview key informants within Mercy Corps about opportunities and challenges related to climate change effects and economic opportunities; conduct a rapid literature review and draft a brief taxonomy of programs addressing climate/economic linkages; and draft a brief summary of challenges and recommendations integrating learning from Mercy Corps current and recent climate/economic opportunity programs, the rapid literature review, and the Mercy Corps key informant interviews.

Consultant Objectives:

The work produced by the consultant should:

1. Conduct a brief landscape analysis of promising work related to climate change and economic opportunities, particularly approaches that leverage the private sector, and/or are designed to have sustainable impact at scale
2. Outline the case for investing in environmental and economic outcomes, identifying drivers of investment in the environment and markets nexus, as well as key donor objectives that align with Mercy Corps goals
3. Outline Mercy Corps roadmap for pursuing climate change mitigation and adaptation through economic opportunities. After mapping the key economic and environmental outcomes the agency is addressing, explore key intervention themes, potentially including but not limited to:
   • Green jobs
   • Climate-smart MSD for agriculture
   • MSD and private sector approaches to climate change mitigation
   • Energy markets
   • Market facilitation approaches to climate change adaptation
4. Determine Mercy Corps distinctives among these themes
5. Identify and document Mercy Corps leading experiences working at the intersection of climate change and economic opportunities
6. Through consultation with the Environment, Energy, and Economic Growth teams, prioritize those themes and approaches
7. Articulate Mercy Corps’ distinctive and critical gaps in addressing climate challenges through economic opportunities

Consultant Activities:

The Consultant will:

• Establish workplan in collaboration with supervisors.
• Conduct a brief external literature review on the intersection of climate change and economic opportunities (with a focus on program interventions that use MSD approaches) and develop.
• Review current and recently closed (within the last 3 years) Mercy Corps programs that address the intersection of climate change and economic opportunities
• Draft case studies of Mercy Corps programs that best illustrate the agency’s capacity to address climate change’s impacts on economic opportunities and vice versa, particularly through market systems development (MSD) approaches.
• Conduct interviews with key informants (appx. 10) within Mercy Corps about opportunities and challenges to address the intersection of climate change and economic opportunities.
• Draft a brief summary of challenges and recommendations integrating learning from Mercy Corps current and recent programs, the rapid literature review, and the Mercy Corps key informant interviews.
• Draft an approach document (3-5 pages) that summarizes Mercy Corps’ approach based on our recent program portfolio as well as an understanding of how our programming needs to evolve, which provides illustrative program examples, as well as a PowerPoint presentation for easy sharing.

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will develop the following deliverables:

• 2 short (e.g., 2 pages) case studies of Mercy Corps programs that best illustrate the agency’s climate change and economic opportunity programming, summarizing the programs’ approaches, underlying logic, outputs, and impacts
• Approach document (3-5 pages) that summarizes Mercy Corps’ climate and economic opportunity approach and provides illustrative program examples.
• PowerPoint presentation that summarizes approach document materials, including cases that can be used for presentations and trainings.
• Presentation, likely in the form of a webinar, to key internal audiences
• Brief summary of challenges and recommendations integrating learning from Mercy Corps current and recent programs, the rapid literature review, and the Mercy Corps key informant interviews.

Timeframe / Schedule:

This contract is for a maximum of 15 days over the course of approximately 2 months.

The Consultant will report to:

Director Environment Technical Support Unit

Director, Markets and Cash Technical Support Unit

The Consultant will work closely with:

Sr. Climate Advisor, Environment Technical Support Unit

Markets, Agriculture systems, Youth employment teams

Senior Director – Economic Growth

Required Experience & Skills:

• 5-10 years of relevant experience
• Understanding of the challenges, opportunities and approaches related to the intersection of climate change and economic development.
• Familiarity with climate resilience, climate mitigation, economic development and market systems development approaches, including experience working in agriculture and employment market systems programming
• Proven ability to lead collaborative research, co-learning and strategy development process.
• Strong writing and communication skills

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.