Job Information Consultancy-The Circular Economy Market Assessment NGO Information
NGO Name Oxfam
Contact Name
Contact Email
Job Information
Contract Duration
Governorate Nineveh
Job Shift
Nationality Not Applicable
Working Hours Full Time
Posted 2022-07-03
Requirements
Minimum Education Bachelor Degree
Degree Title
Minimum Experience 1 Year
Required Travel
Job Status
No Of Jobs 1
Published Date 2022-07-03
Deadline Date 2022-07-12
Location
[Mosul,Iraq ]
Description

   Consultancy-The Circular Economy Market Assessment

 

Project Background

Oxfam is a global organization that fights inequality to end poverty and injustice. Oxfam offers lifesaving support in times of crisis and advocates for economy justice, gender equality, and climate action. Oxfam demands equal rights and equal treatment so that everyone can thrive, not just survive. Recognizing the importance of sustainable development towards achieving inclusive justice, Oxfam applies a triple nexus approach that connects its humanitarian work with longer-term development initiatives alongside advocacy work to ensure more sustainable change. Oxfam’s humanitarian and development priorities in-country are emergency food security, vulnerable livelihoods, water and sanitation, gender justice, and protection. Oxfam has been working in Iraq since the 1990s with an expanding and contracting presence has embarked on research and operational projects related to sustainable production and private sector development, with a view of gradually shifting from humanitarian and early-recovery actions to longer-term solutions to the prevailing drivers of vulnerability. The critical role of the private sector in addressing major development challenges have long been recognized and promoted within Oxfam programmes in Iraq and other parts of the globe.

Oxfam’s Iraq Response Innovation Lab (IRIL) was established in 2019 to ensure innovation is integrated within local humanitarian contexts. It has extensive experience supporting economic recovery through innovative, impactful interventions in five conflict-affected governates of Iraq, including Ninewa, with focus on innovations led by women and youth. IRIL is an initiative within Oxfam’s programming and not a legally independent entity. This assessment is part of the Oxfam in Iraq IRIL initiative- where the opportunity for the private sector to engage in the circular economy has been identified as a priority in the next 3-5 years. The aim of this study therefore is to assess these opportunities in designated sectors where innovations by the private sector can make significant gains in improving competitiveness and efficiency within the business, and lead to positive climate co-benefit externalities in addressing economic, environmental, and social challenges.

The circular economy (CE) provides a unique opportunity to confront these needs. It can support Iraq to diversify its economy away from oil and create new value by reusing, repairing, refurbishing, and recycling existing goods. By providing opportunities design more sustainable products and keep resources in use for longer, it can help Mosul/Ninewa to ‘leapfrog’ to a more sustainable development pathway that avoids being locked into resource-intensive practices and infrastructure. For low-income consumers in Mosul, it will mean better products that last for longer, and are designed to be reused, repaired, and ultimately recycled. However, this transition towards circular economies requires a new type of support. It goes beyond business management/skills training and includes technical as well as financial support to Micro-Small, Medium Enterprises (MSME) to re-think business models and resource management plans to increase their value extraction. It requires a whole system approach that draws public awareness to the environmental, social, and economic benefits to a circular economy to create new markets and pathways for job creation. Finally, it requires investments in job-relevant skills development programs, particularly for women and youth, to pursue those pathways. This proposed intervention plans to do exactly this

Oxfam in Iraq is looking into transforming existing business models and operations in Mosul District towards a Circular Economy (CE), as demand for green consumption grows and companies/SMEs continue to develop innovative ways to use waste and by-products.

II.Scope of work

The focus of these Terms of Reference is to perform an analysis of the opportunities for private sector engagement to adopt CE practices in Mosul and prepare comprehensive and practical recommendations based on the analysis, to be implemented under the UNDP supported project. Oxfam’s approach will be to bring together youth women, men, and market actors under Outputs 1 and 2 to ensure that those skills, which are relevant to the circular economy, are emphasized, developed, and contribute towards circular economy market development, as briefly outlined below.

  1. Output 1- Vocational training and development: Individuals will be enrolled in vocational trainings to learn key skills so they can access the labour market afterwards. Trainings will be delivered through technical, vocational, education training (TVET) centres or through private sector employers, based on capacity and impact potential. This Circular Economy Market Assessment is aimed at identifying in-demand sub-sectors and develop a roster of potential employers.
  2. Output 2- Technical and financial support for business expansion, re-start, or launch: Evidence from past Oxfam projects suggest that business grants are an effective way of supporting conflict-affected individuals to immediately restore their income-generating options. This approach also supports greater innovation within livelihoods interventions, as businesses are more confident taking small risks. Business grants will be complemented with business management training to build individual capacities and business literacy. Grants will be provided to only those businesses which are confidently and objectively scored high as having growth potential. The empowerment through skills in knowledge transfer in the form of business management and technical training, specifically for women and youth, will create resilient livelihood opportunities in new, sustainable sub-sectors. This assessment is therefore aimed at identifying the existing gaps in terms of technical/financial/skills support needed to effectively support the sub-sectors necessary for sustainable roll-out of the CE.
  3. Assessment of market potential and private sector opportunities for CE enterprises in Mosul District

Even though sectors are yet to be identified, it is likely that they will include high priority sectors related to Agri-business, food processing, electronics/ digital-waste and construction. The Consultant is encouraged to suggest focus-sectors in his/her own methodology for the TOR and outline these briefly in their Expression of Interest (EOI. Oxfam strongly encourages a well- grounded approach that allows us to draw evidence-based conclusions for the recommendations. Below is a brief outline on what should be considered by the consultant.

  1. Prepare an overview of existing base of private and public sector engagement in CE practices and business models in Mosul District with focus on Mosul City.
  2. Characteristics of the Firms: Type of firms that have adopted CE practices vs those that don’t. How many are domestic versus multinationals, SME vs large, or share of market that practices CE, etc.
  3. Types of products generated or potentially generated through CE value chains, possible markets, profit margins etc.
  4. Types of CE business models that are being adopted in Mosul/Iraq currently and how these compares to other countries in the middle east.
  5. Spatial element of CE adoption in Mosul District. The analysis should also try identifying if possible whether this adoption in urban locations, areas recovering from intensive conflict, or location with the highest demand for the products or areas with the highest skills needed to manufacture CE products
  6. Gaps in skills- needed to manufacture CE products and institutions that can provide the necessary training. These institutions should include governmental entities such as DoLSA (Directorate of Labour and Social Affairs) and DoE (Directorate of Education). Moreover, establish the resource constraints facing these institutions and their added value/strong points to promoting CE in Mosul District.
  7. Assess market potential (i.e., gap between ‘business as usual’ and ‘potential for CE’ scenarios) for increasing circular practices in the focus sectors in Mosul, by examining the status quo and potential for catalysing circular practices, both directly and indirectly. Specific interventions (potential investments in technologies, processes, CE business models) should be identified as business cases for each identified sector. Benchmarking to regional or global examples with similar economic characteristics should be used as a method to understand gap from good practice. Resource requirements needed for SMEs to adopt CE business models
  8. Main policy and non-policy constraints and challenges to CE in Iraq and recommendations.
  9. Based on the results of the section A, this section will cover key constraints and challenges to reach potential for CE in Mosul District. The section will outline the key policy and non-policy constraints to achieve potential, and could include (not limited to) restriction to key drivers of growth such as access to skills, research and development, public awareness, digital infrastructure, finance, inputs etc. It could include issues around market contestability and competition restrictions. The analysis should also include an assessment of the current regulatory environment in comparison to comparator global benchmarks elsewhere (example Egypt, Syria, Iran etc) to identify the key obstacles.
  10. The section will then outline a set of concrete and practical recommendations that could help address the constraints identified. This deliverable will provide a well-defined set of practical tools/approaches that policymakers and implementing agencies can apply in developing (e.g., regulation, incentives and investments, awareness, and coordination) to promote CE practices in the identified sectors. It is intended to provide in-depth insight into how the public sector can establish the enabling environment necessary to promote private sector development and environmental stewardship in circularity in Mosul. It should be based on realistic targets with some level of buy-in from key stakeholders and confirmed through a workshop or roundtable discussion based on the findings.
  11. Each category (and its subcategories) of policy tools or approaches must be complemented by light case studies showcasing circumstances where each tool/approach is most effective and, if relevant, where the applied tools/approaches have failed. The categories should consider the varying institutional and governance capacities needed to deliver the tools/approaches proposed, as well the general challenges the local authorities face (e.g., lack of human and/or financial resources, monitoring and enforcement capacity, conflicting policy goals, limited public-public and public-private dialogue, etc.).
  12. The assessment shall also identify public and private potential investments, shortlisting 2-3 companies/SMEs per focus sector that could highly benefit from the implementation of CE interventions.
Qualifications & Preferred Skills

Expected output, consulting firm’s team and timeline

The consulting firm/consultant is expected to deliver:

  1. A structured Expression of Interest (EOI) max-10 pages that provides details of the adopted methodology to be used during the assessment. Data collection tools must be attached as an annex.
  2. Make a presentation Max-25 Slides during an Inception meeting to discuss its EOI
  3. A 45-page report detailing methodology, data analysis and detailed results.
  4. 20-slide PPT presentation summery of the report.

Oxfam requires a consulting firm/Consultant, a consortium with academic institution is preferable, with demonstrated experience in CE business models and their applications (as a primary competence requirement), local-to-country wide value chains, technical and/or financial innovations, policy tools, and green economy more generally. Given that a key focus of the assignment is to determine private sector investment opportunities for conflict-affected communities, it is important that the firm/consultant has experience in working on/in private/NGO sector related assignments.

The Consulting firm is encouraged to leverage existing connections and experience to efficiently gather information from various public, private, academic, and non-governmental organisation (NGOs) sources of relevant information.

The Consultant is encouraged to provide details on the methodology to be used to collect and analyse the information required in the Technical Proposal. EOI Proposals showcasing relevant experience in the topics covered (i.e., resource efficiency, CE, firm-level challenges and opportunities, manufacturing operations, private sector development, surveying, etc.) and research conducted in developing countries in the middle east (i.e., local presence and/or established contacts) will be favoured. A consolidated experience in designing and implementing structured surveys to ensure statistical representativeness (engaging statisticians or partnering with a specialized firm) is mandatory pre-requisite for the submission of the proposals.

The assignment should be completed within 16 days from the date of signing the contract (13/07/2022). This period includes the review of the report by Oxfam and in parallel the adjustments if needed by the Consulting firm/Consultant. The latter must include in their EOI, a comprehensive workplan that outlines key achievements/deliverables during this timeline.

Below is a table explaining the expected outputs timeline from both Oxfam and Consulting Firm/Consultant:

  • A structured Expression of Interest (EOI) max-10 pages; Deadline: Before closure date of the announcement: 06/07/22. Refer to section III point 1 from the Consulting firm/Consultant.
  • Selection of Consulting firm/Consultant; Dead Line: 11/07/22. By Oxfam.
  • Presentation of 25 slides max to explain the EOI and signing the contract; Deadline: 13/07/22. A meeting will be held in person or online with the Consulting firm/Consultant.
  • Conducting the Assessment; Deadline: 14/07/22 till 21/07/22. By Consulting firm/Consultant.
  • Submission of a 45-page report detailing methodology, data analysis and detailed results and Submission of a 20-slide PPT presentation summary of the report; Deadline: 25/07/22. By Consulting firm/Consultant.
  • Review and comments on the report; Dead Line: 27/07/22. By Oxfam.
  • Submission of the final version of the report and presentation after comments from Oxfam; Deadline:28/07/22. By Consulting firm/Consultant

IV. Structure and content of the technical and financial proposal

Oxfam’s intention is for responses to be compact and focused, with limited tangential or partially relevant information. Outlined below are indications of preference in terms of the main sections of the technical and financial proposal which should be addressed:

  1. Consulting firm’s Experience. Please be selective, choosing cases that are most directly relevant to this assignment, beginning with the strongest and most relevant cases.
  2. Comments/Suggestions on the Terms of Reference. Highlight from your own experience how the approach may be improved.
  3. Description of Approach, Methodology and Work Plan: Organization and Staffing.
  4. Budget: Should be attached and includes all costs related to the assessment. The applicant need to consider the costs related to data collectors, transportation and communication fees.

The staffing sub-section should focus only on team members that have a substantial and concrete role in this assignment and costs be reflected in whole days. The methodology should not be an expansion of the TOR but should give details on how the firm will carry out the work.

Below is a table explaining the method of payment:

  • Installments: 1st: 30 %; Date: 13/07/22 (Upon signing the contract) ; Requirement for disbursement: A presentation of 25 slides maximum explaining the EoI.
  • Installments: 2nd: 30 %; Date: 16/07/22; Requirement for disbursement: Verification from the Oxfam Mosul team through monitoring visit that assessments are ongoing
  • Installments: 3rd: 40 %; Date: 31/07/22; Requirement for disbursement: After submission of the final report and detailed presentation on the 28th of July, 2022.
How To Apply

As part of your online application, please prepare and submit the below mentioned documents to irqconsultancy@oxfam.org.uk Use the subject “Consultancy-The Circular Economy Assessment in Ninawa” as description.

• Your up-to-date CV and a previous experience booklet that demonstrates suitability against criteria in the TOR.

• A technical offer that includes the workplan that the consultant will apply to carry out the activities.

• A financial offer that covers all deliverables

Kindly note that the selection process will be on a rolling basis. Due to the urgency of the position, Oxfam has reserved the right to recruit a candidate who matches the required profile before the above deadline.

TOR Link: https:

https://jobs.oxfam.org.uk/vacancy/17475/description

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