Consultancy Opportunity – Market Assessment – Northern Uganda | - 2015

Dear all,

Enterprise Uganda, VSO and Youth Business International (YBI) are jointly seeking the services of a skilled research consultant / team of consultants to undertake a thorough market assessment across 3-5 target regions of Northern Uganda. The five target regions are: Acholi, West Nile, Lango, Teso and Karamoja – depending on projected cost this could potentially be reduced to three regions. The analysis is likely to include between 1 – 2 weeks in the field.

Maximum budget available – Please note, the maximum budget available for this evaluation is: £20,930

Purpose and scope of the Market Assessment Study

This study is intended to be a practical input for the implementing organisations in sign-posting youth towards business and vocational employment sectors with sufficient profitability and wage margins, whilst helping them avoid over-saturated areas. We would like to know what capital requirements are required to set up businesses in a range of sectors, what is the growth potential, potential for creating additional employment, survivability rates etc.

A second key objective for this study is to provide information on predicted future economic and market opportunities to allow youth to proactively position themselves to seize them. It is further intended that, at the same time as identifying opportunities, the study will identify the real barriers and requirements to accessing these opportunities.

The study is intended to strongly complement the participatory youth needs assessment conducted by YBI and EUG at NUYEP project inception, which provides information on perceived opportunities, barriers and constraints to entrepreneurship from the target group perspective. It will also build on the market relevance research conducted by VSO for the YDP which assesses market opportunities, skills and other requirements needed to access them from a vocational/technical occupation perspective. Copies will be provided on appointment.

We are interested in recommendations and suggestions for institutionalising market assessment data collection to feed regularly into programming and provide youth with accurate, up-to-date information. This study is intended as a starting point for exploring the different options for VSO, EUG and YBI to implement this more systematically going forward.

For full information, please see Terms of Reference attached.

How to apply:

Applications for this consultancy should be emailed to annie.barber@youthbusiness.org by 9am (UK GMT) on Wednesday March 4th, 2015, with ‘Northern Uganda Market Assessment’ in the subject line.

Proposals should be no longer than 4 pages, excluding CVs, budget and example piece of work. Proposals should include:

· Up-to-date CV

· Short overview of how the candidate meets the qualifications, experience and skills requirements (no more than one page)

· Description of proposed approach and methodology

· Projected budget – including projected travel and in-country accommodation and subsistence costs. Holding tax must also be included where relevant. Payment milestones should also be included.

· An example piece of work from a similar assignment