Description

Background:

iDE is an international NGO that was founded 40 years ago with the belief that markets lift people out of poverty. We catalyze change in markets by incentivizing low-income people to establish locally-led scalable solutions that are passed down through generations and founded on mutually beneficial partnerships. We help build local economies and value chains that deliver goods and services to “last mile” customers in remote areas. We do this by building networks of small-scale entrepreneurs that power “resilient market ecosystems’’, and boosting the incomes of marginalized people, medium-sized commercial farmers and the private sector. iDE resilience-building efforts are currently assisting farmers and entrepreneurs living in nine countries to adapt to multiple environmental, public health and socio-political shocks.

About the Market Systems Resilience Index (MSRI):

The Market Systems Resilience Index (MSRI) measures the market's ability to react, withstand, and change in response to shocks and stressors. Understanding the different needs and vulnerabilities that households and market actors are required to overcome, can help identify channels through which effective interventions can be adopted. MSRI is a standard resilience measurement tool that has been pioneered by iDE and has been implemented in seven countries across the globe. By using the MSRI at two or more points in time, projects can identify needed adjustments after the first measurement round and test whether the adjusted activities led to changes in the market system.

Assignment:

The MSRI tool, first developed in 2018, has now undergone several iterations to improve its quality and address particular project and country contexts. These adaptations range from an update of the tool using a Gender Equity and Social Inclusion perspective to a variant built to address the coastal communities context in a particular project in Mozambique. However, with each update and adaptation the tool gets stretched and needs to be aligned with its conceptual framework to ensure its validity and rigor. To this end, the iDE team is seeking a consultant with relevant experience in index building and ideally some conceptual background on resilience to help us ensure alignment of the current version of the tool with the foundations and next steps established in its follow-on peer-reviewed article and the current literature on market systems resilience. This process would entail refining the questions to ensure they are targeted to address relevant elements of resilience that are being assessed. The final step would be to review and refine iDE’s proposed process for making future adaptations to the tool, that would ensure any change to the tool follows robust steps and parameters that maintain the integrity of the tool.

Objectives:

The key deliverables for this assignment are as follows:

• Update existing literature review to ensure the conceptual framework is in alignment with the most updated in the Market Systems Resilience sector.

• Review existing literature and conceptual framework for the current version of MSRI to understand what elements of the literature have been incorporated into the tool.
• Provide guidance on the recommended time frame between data collections based on existing literature on MSRI indicators.

• Review the current questionnaires that make up the MSRI to ensure the measure is as lean as can be. The aim for this task is to reduce as many of the questions as possible without losing any critical assessment of the determinants for resilience.

• Ensure that all the indicators that currently are mapped to each determinant have literature backing their inclusion as an essential measure of market system resilience.
• Reduce any questions that are similar, cover similar topics, or are not needed.
• Evaluate the value of current open-ended questions and provide recommendations on whether they should be in a follow-up tool or remain integrated into the MSRI tool, as they are not currently incorporated into the scoring of the index.
• Update sample guidance for clarity, ensuring representativeness, and rigor.
• Provide recommendations on how to address instances where baselines have already been implemented with the current version of the tool

• Review the drafted adaptation process document to ensure that the steps described are robust enough so changes to the tool do not jeopardize the conceptual framework:

1. Provide guidance on what elements should be included or removed from the current process.
2. Recommending parameters/rules around changes to maintain a high quality standard. Clearly distinguish what approaches should be taken depending on the nature of the adaptation, for example:

• Update to the overall food systems- focus of the tool, such as nutrition sensitivity and/or food security
• Adaptation to a different livelihood outside of the food system, such as aquaculture, forestry, etc
• Adaptation to a new sector, such as Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, Plastic Waste, etc.

• Review and provide improvements to the current scoring process and calculations

• Recommend a process for how response options in the questionnaire should be scored.

What are best practices? What approaches could be applied within our organizational structure?

• Review the process of averaging questions, indicators, determinants and principles to ensure there is no bias in the approach to averaging scores.
• Assess the questionnaire for implicit weighting bias based on how many questions and indicators are mapped to one determinant versus another.

Requirements

The successful consultant should possess the following qualifications:

• Demonstrated expertise in research methodology, especially within the international development sector. Preferred experience in leading or contributing to research or development of index measurements
• Extensive experience in quantitative analysis
• Preferred familiarity with the R programming language and its application in data analysis
• Preferred experience in conducting qualitative research
• PhD level research experience preferred
• Working knowledge of resilience in the international development sector context
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills to identify areas for improvement in data processes
• Preferred experience in process and data flow mapping
• Knowledge of data traceability best practices and the ability to recommend improvements.
• Strong communication and documentation skills to report findings, progress, and recommendations effectively.
• Ability to provide training and support for iDE staff on data-related tools and methodologies.

Benefits: Budget: 20,000 - 25,000 USD

Apply at: https://apply.workable.com/ide-global/j/39BE6EE3A4/apply/