Consultant - Puerto Rico Business Recovery - Puerto Rico

Background:

Mercy Corps recognizes the impact of hurricane Maria in adding significant challenges to the already prolonged economic crisis in Puerto Rico. Mercy Corps has prioritized economic, market development and livelihoods as part of its wider strategy to build community resilience. Mercy Corps anticipates launching several new economic and market development programs to enable vulnerable individuals and key market actors to rebuild small and medium business and support entrepreneurs. To do so, Mercy Corps seeks a short-term consultant to support the start-up and development of economic and market development work in Puerto Rico.

Purpose / Project Description:

The Business Recovery Consultant will be responsible for providing short-term strategic technical leadership, partnership building and design support for economic opportunity and market development programming. While in Puerto Rico, s/he will be accountable for the formulation, design, planning, implementation, coordination, monitoring and evaluation of Mercy Corps business recovery and markets development work in Puerto Rico, with specific focus on the tourism sector on the islands of Vieques and Culebra, San Juan, and the East coast of Puerto Rico as well as on businesses opportunities for youth and entrepreneurs from vulnerable and impoverished communities.

Consultant Objectives and Activities

• Provide inputs to Puerto Rico Director and lead the development of the MC Puerto Rico strategy for business recovery programming;
• Lead integrated design processes in order to converge existing and new programming on business recovery to deliver maximum joint impact, and integrate market-related activities into the design of business recovery programs;
• Design and lead additional market assessment(s) as needed to identify most promising opportunities to provide additional support to small businesses in Puerto Rico that will have an oversized impact on vulnerable families and communities
• Prepare a detailed work plan for proposed business recovery program including activities, budget forecasting, timeline and expected results
• Support the interim Business Development PM and Puerto Rico Mission Director in hiring and onboarding new team members for the Business Development programs in Puerto Rico. S/he might be requested to participate as advisor on recruitment panels for technical staff.

Consultant Deliverables:

The Consultant will:

• Written report of assessment findings and recommendations for business recovery in Puerto Rico
• Complete full proposal for business recovery efforts in target areas including detailed work plan and budget. (estimated budget around $1M, final amount could vary) and high level technical expertise to Puerto Rico Director and in country program personnel to complete additional proposals for further funding in pipeline for business recovery.
• Technical inputs and draft a detailed work plan for the existing projects awarded by current donors ($1.5M / 13 months) in support to the PM Business development.

Timeframe / Schedule: 1-2 months. Late June to August (Final dates TBD)

The Consultant will report to:

• Interim Business Development PM / PR Technical Advisor
• Puerto Rico Director

The Consultant will work closely with: Program Manager Resilience and Partnerships , M&E personnel, relevant HQ TSU staff, other staff as required

PI102903480

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