Northern Nigeria Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment Consultant Job at Mercy Corps

[Jobrib]

Job Title: Northern Nigeria Vulnerability and Capacity Assessment (VCA) Consultant

Tracking Code: 219042-927

Location: Abuja, Nigeria

Employer: Mercy Corps

Background:

•   Over recent years in West Africa the combination of severe drought, ongoing conflict and underlying structural issues, including gender imbalances and tumultuous democratic transitions, have placed tens of millions of individuals at risk of 'catastrophic' food and livelihood insecurity.  The convergence of severe natural, economic and security-related shocks has cultivated a complex crisis significantly impeding livelihood security of the most vulnerable poorest populations throughout the region.

•   Since 2012, Mercy Corps has been working with communities in Nigeria's Middle Belt states to create lasting and positive change, focusing on the underlying drivers of conflict and opportunities for young women. Mercy Corps proposes to conduct a vulnerability and capacity assessment (VCA) in three states in Northern Nigeria to better understand the drivers and levers for positive change amidst the sea of ongoing challenges.

Purpose / Project Description:

•   Vulnerability and capacity assessments provide a methodology to answer the four key questions to resilience – Resilience to what? Resilience for whom? Resilience for what? Resilience through what?  The VCA will help to identify weaknesses in key socio-ecological systems and potential future hazards that may exacerbate such weaknesses; and therefore helping to create a baseline from which changes in resilience can be measured.

•   Rather than viewing a VCA as a single assessment, Mercy Corps sees VCAs as a well-coordinated series of assessments. These may use established tools or be designed for a specific purpose. Used together they help to develop an understanding of the complex systems communities operate within.

•   Mercy Corps has developed a vulnerability assessment methodology that aims to understand vulnerability across scales. As such, information will be collected and analysed at the community, regional, and national level. Data driven, top-down, assessments will be complimented by qualitative, bottom-up information collected from communities and stakeholders from across the region.

Consultant Objectives:

By conducting a vulnerability and capacity assessment of Northern Nigeria, the consultant will support Mercy Corps to meet the following objectives:

•   Inform the development of a broad strategy to reduce chronic poverty for Northern Nigeria.

•   Influence the funding strategies of Northern Nigeria for DFID and other major donors.

•   Identify potential partners and better understand their capacities.

•   Identify drivers of vulnerability to continue to monitor after the initial assessment is complete based on indicators designed in collaboration with DFID.

•   Build the capacity of the DFID country team to facilitate additional vulnerability assessment processes.

•   Contribute to the ongoing efforts of the Mercy Corps' Resilience Initiative by helping to further understand how VCAs can contribute to resilience-building programmes.

Mercy Corps seeks to understand the following research questions through the VCA in Northern Nigeria:

•   Identifying who, where & how large the most vulnerable & marginalised communities are, what are the key identifiable characteristics (e.g. ethnicity, economic activities, access to land & inputs, access to government services, etc.)

•   Which shocks and stresses most affect the most marginalized groups? How do frequency and/or severity of shocks affect these groups? Are there different coping mechanisms at different levels of social structure (e.g. household, community, state)?

•   What coping mechanisms (both positive and negative) are the most marginalized groups relying on? Are these strategies getting more or less available/successful over time?

•   What is stopping people from investing in high-risk, high-return opportunities that generate growth? What are the opportunities related to adopting low external input strategies?

•   What is the effect of patronage on the social system?

Consultant Activities:

Phase I: Expert & Key Informant Interviews

•   Conduct literature review to collect and analyse relevant data and information from the established body of studies regarding the target communities, and more general literature about the Northern Nigeria region (engaging bilaterally graduate programs at Ado Bayero University, University of Maiduguri and the Federal University of Agriculture in Makurdi).

•   Conduct expert interviews to validate, prioritize, and further enrich information gathered through the desk review. Individuals interviewed will be experts on food security, agriculture, land tenure, governance, climate, water, and conservation issues in Northern Nigeria.

•   Conduct key informant interviews with ministry officials in each state with the purpose of identifying district level data on the shocks and stresses facing communities.

Phase 2: Community Data Collection

•   Liase with partner organizations to conduct twelve (12) community assessments on livelihood assets and coping strategies of community members and the type of impacts they are experiencing as a result of shocks and stresses. Target communities will be selected to provide a sample across the 3 target state districts.

•   Assessments will make use of focus group discussions, livelihood and asset mapping, and hazard and impact ranking to provide additional information at the local scale and "ground truth" broad landscape scale data collected during the expert interviews and desk research.

Phase 3: Workshops and Strategy Design

•   An analysis workshop with district government officials, technical experts, and partner organizations will be organized to synthesize and analyse information from the previous steps, as well as contribute to initial strategy development.

•   Mercy Corps will convene a strategy design session with a more focused group of its implementing partners to build upon the analysis workshop and develop an action plan to apply VCA findings to future food security and conflict resolution program design.

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will:

•   Refine a methodology for the overall VCA. Select, produce and contextualize data collection tools.

•   Oversee data collection process and data cleaning.

•   Analyse data in an ongoing and iterative manner, sharing results as they are analysed and re-forming data collection as the process evolves.

•   Document a case study on the process of developing the VCA methodology that highlights lessons learned – developed for an international audience.

•   Develop a case study on the methodology's application and projected potential impact on program design – developed for international audiences.

Job Location: abuja, Abuja Capital Territory, Nigeria

Position Type: Consulting

Apply to this job