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. Now, and for the future.
We are recruiting to fill the position below:
Job Title: Consultant for Design & Development of MYTH Tracker Tool
Location: Borno
Background
- Mercy Corps has been present in Nigeria since 2012, focusing its interventions on humanitarian assistance, economic development, and conflict mitigation. With the ongoing insurgency in Northeast Nigeria causing the displacement of millions of individuals, Mercy Corps started its humanitarian response in 2014 to address the rising humanitarian needs. As the crisis has persisted, Mercy Corps’ strategy has also expanded to address the root causes of the conflict and seek to build the long term resilience of communities with integrated programs focusing on governance, the recovery of markets and livelihoods, social cohesion and social protection, youth empowerment, and local conflict management.
- The GASKIYA (Hausa for ‘Truth’), Addressing COVID-19 Myths through Technology project is a Cisco-funded pilot initiative being implemented from June to October 2020.
- The overall goal of the project is to improve community-level behavioral change related to COVID-19 prevention measures through strategic risk communications in Borno State. According to a listener assessment by a local radio station in May 2020, 96% of its listeners had heard COVID-19 messaging on its station, but 45% still did not believe that COVID-19 was ‘real or deadly’. Rather, most local communities rely heavily on local myths and rumors being propagated by local leaders and over social media. As a result, current sensitization efforts around COVID-19 continue to fall short of their intended impact.
- Mercy Corps seeks to address these barriers by effectively combatting COVID-19 myths, informing strategic risk communications, and enhancing positive personal and social behaviors that can mitigate the spread of the virus in Borno State.
In order to achieve these results, Mercy Corps is undertaking three core activities:
- COVID-19 Messaging Assessment – Mercy Corps will conduct a comprehensive and community-driven assessment of community access to COVID-19 information, attitudes towards messaging content, messengers, and modalities for both factual and false information, and recommendations for improved campaigns. The results of the assessment will inform the design of subsequent myth tracking.
- Rumor Tracker Tool – Mercy Corps will pilot a digital tool that can receive and aggregate data about new rumors and conspiracy theories emerging in hard-to-reach communities, fact-check this information, and share new trends on a digital dashboard with government, humanitarian, and media stakeholders, for more effective communications campaigns.
- Participatory Analysis and Reports – Mercy Corps will also invest in the production of comprehensive, bi-monthly analysis reports that aim to synthesize information for government, media, and humanitarian stakeholders, as well as local communities themselves.
Consultancy Objectives
In line with Activity 2 above, the overall objective of this assignment is to:
- Design and develop a 2-way communication interface: This tool should enable community members to report rumors through simple voice and text options via SMS (and/or WhatsApp), accounting for local languages (Hausa and Kanuri) and issues of literacy. The tool should also enable sending of feedback to the original submitting user.
- Enable automatic compilation of a rumor database: Data coming from users should directly populate a back-end database, enabling staff moderators to perform analysis (such as risk rating, true/false designation, etc.).
- Link database to live, accessible dashboard: The database should connect to a live dashboard that can be shared publicly among key stakeholders, to present visualizations of key analysis and program recommendations.
Scope of Work
To achieve the above objectives, the consultant will perform the following tasks:
- Consult with the GASKIYA team on design of the rumor tracker tool
- Produce a design document detailing the user journey and analyst entry points
- Develop the communication interface tool and linked back-end database
- Design and develop the dashboard page
- Facilitate rapid user testing of the tool with Mercy Corps-supported community groups
- Incorporate user feedback from beta-testing period to revised tools
Deliverables and Timeframe
Key Deliverables Estimated Deadline:
- User Journey Design Document – 31st July 2020
- Rumor Tracker Tool Beta Version – 14th August 2020
- Back-end Rumor Database – 14th August 2020
- Digital Dashboard, with visualizations – 4th September 2020
- Revised Tool, Database, and Dashboard – 25th September 2020
Skills and Experience Required of the Consultant
The consultant firm or individual is expected to have the following skills and qualifications:
- Demonstrated experience developing and managing information communication technology (ICT) systems for community engagement in peacebuilding and/or development programs
- Demonstrated experience developing databases for efficient quantitative data management and analysis
- Demonstrated experience producing interactive visualizations to present data analysis
- Ability to transcribe Hausa and Kanuri language content and translate data into English.
Job Title: Consultant on Capacity Building in Design & Development of Strong Website for UAS-LCB Radio Patners
Location: Borno
Background
- Mercy Corps has been present in Nigeria since 2012, focusing its interventions on humanitarian assistance, economic development, and conflict mitigation. With the ongoing insurgency in Northeast Nigeria causing the displacement of millions of individuals, Mercy Corps started its humanitarian response in 2014 to address the immediate basic needs of vulnerable communities using community-led and market-driven approaches.
- As the crisis has persisted, Mercy Corps’ strategy has also expanded to address the root causes of the conflict and seek to build the long term resilience of communities with integrated programs focusing on governance, the recovery of markets and livelihoods, social cohesion and social protection, youth empowerment, and localized peacebuilding and conflict management.
- Mercy Corps is currently implementing the ‘Using the Airwaves for Stability in the Lake Chad Basin’ program, which focuses on the use of radio as a means to generate constructive public dialogue and debate in order to inform more participatory and effective policies, practices, and communications channels related to reintegration and reconciliation for communities in northeast Nigeria. The program will run until December 2020.
The UAS-LCB Program seeks to:
- Strengthen the capacity of radio partners to engage in ethical and conflict-sensitive journalism practices in a way that generates accurate, transformative, and sustainable radio programming on themes of reintegration and reconciliation
- Strengthen community awareness and understanding of dynamics, developments, and options around reintegration and reconciliation
- Promote opportunities for communities to provide feedback on reintegration and reconciliation that creates greater ownership, participation and sustainable implementation of policies and practices
- Promote localized narratives of peace coexistence aimed at establishing a foundation for effective reintegration and reconciliation
Consultant Objectives
As part of Objective 1, Mercy Corps is seeking to strengthen the capacity of radio partner Dandal Kura Radio International to engage in ethical and conflict-sensitive journalism practices. In order to deliver this objective with quality, Mercy Corps deems it necessary to develop and design a strong website and social media presence for local radio partner Dandal Kura Radio International to meet up with clear competitive demands for a standard media outlet. These services will include:
- Web design
- Editorial support for website
- Upgrading of social media platforms
- Capacity building on web and social media management
Mercy Corps expects that all activities will result in Dandal Kura being able to practically apply the necessary skills for maintaining a good website and social media presence independently and thereby improve their ability to deliver quality peacebuilding programming.
Consultant Activities:
- Consult with the DKRI/UAS-LCB team in order to gain a strong understanding of the objectives and current gaps of the website and social media pages
- Effect the agreed changes related to editorial support, upgrading web design, and improving social media pages
- Design a website and social media management manual to guide continuous updates by Dandal Kura
- Provide training to Dandal Kura on basic web and social media management
- Prepare a Training Report detailing the content and outcomes of the training
Deliverables and Timeframe:
- Assessment of website and social media gaps and recommended improvements
- Updated web and social media pages
- Training materials, including website and social media management manual
- Two-day training on web and social media management
- Training Report
Note: Deadlines to be confirmed upon contracting.
Total Estimated Level of Effort:
- 10 days
Required Experience & Skills
The ideal consultant will have the following experience and skills:
- 8+ years of experience in media and communications
- Demonstrated technical expertise in website design, social media content development, social media marketing, creative designs and editorial support for websites skills
- Established expertise mentoring local media outlets
- Advanced degree in Journalism, Communications, Social Sciences, or other related fields.
- English and Hausa fluency required.
Deadline: 31st July, 2020.
How to Apply
Interested and qualified candidates should send the following documents below to: mdg-procurement@mercycorps.org using the Job Title as the subject of the mail
Documents includes:
- Organizational profile (if relevant) and CVs of all key personnel
- Narrative proposal, detailing recommended approaches to develop a rumor tracker tool that will fulfill the established objectives, as well as the methodology for implementation and long-term maintenance of the tool
- Cost proposal, in line with proposed tasks and level of effort
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