CEDIS Project business case and success story documentation
Project/Consultancy Title: CEDIS Project business case and success story documentation
Project Location(s):
Bulawayo, Mutare, Harare
Project:
With funding from the Embassy of Sweden, Mercy Corps is implementing the Catalysing Economic Development through
the Informal Sector (CEDIS) program. The 4-year programme aims to improve incomes, working conditions and resilience
to shocks and stresses of 30,000 vulnerable young women (70% aged 18-35) in the urban and surrounding rural areas of
Bulawayo, Mutare, and Harare through sustainable informal and micro-enterprise livelihoods. The CEDIS program is
committed to contributing to greater women’s economic empowerment by achieving improved incomes, better working
conditions, and greater economic resilience. Currently the CEDIS program is working with partners across 6 selected sectors
which are small scale manufacturing, agro-processing, waste management, financial inclusion, productivr use of renewable
energy and machinery. Taking a facilitative approach, the CEDIS program is centred on strengthening the roles of women
and women-led enterprises across target sectors, while also addressing strategic cross-cutting market constraints. The
program seeks to enable the informal sector system to function more inclusively for women, particularly young women, for
increased productivity, employment and income opportunities. In the end, we expect that by having access to better
opportunities in the informal sector, women would have greater economic empowerment; thereby having stronger agency
and decision-making power towards their economic activities as well as policy-making processes. Therefore, women’s
economic vulnerability in the informal sector will be reduced and resilience will increase.
The CEDIS program has transitioned from pilot to scale up implementation phase whereby the number and size of
partnerships and reach of program participants has significantly increased as well as expanded geography of implementation.
Thus, during this stage of implementation, it is critical to document lessons learnt to inform intervention design as well as
share evidence across a wide range of stakeholder
Duties and Responsibilities
The program’s intervention logic entails:
Goal: Improved incomes, working conditions and resilience to shocks and stresses for 30,000 young women (70% aged 18-
35yrs) in the informal sector.
Outcome 1: Female employees and female suppliers earn more through increased quantity of work or increased rates of
pay.
Outcome 2: Women-led enterprises experience improved business performance.
Outcome 3: Young women and women-led enterprises experience an improved business environment.
Rationale:
Documenting lessons learned and success stories during pilot and scale up phase implementation helps to promote sharing
of evidence-based practices that have shown to be successful in implementing especially in Market Systems Development
(MSD) programs. This will stimulate program enhancement and maximization of available resources within the organisation
and its partners by acting as a mechanism for continuous learning, feedback, reflection and analysis of what did and did not
work, how it worked and why. The lessons learned could then be used to inform scaling up or replication of proven critical
success factors and lessons learnt. It is also intended to demonstrate the value that Mercy Corps has added in terms of
designing and implementing sustainable and impactful programs through this CEDIS project using the MSD approach.
Objectives of the assignment
The CEDIS program would like to document the economic benefits that private sector/s have generated through a business
case scenario by highlighting the opportunities of working with women in the informal sector as service providers, agents
and clients across the program’s priority sectors. These sectors include waste management, small scale manufacturing, agro-
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processing, financial inclusion and productive use of renewable energy in Mutare urban, Mutare rural, Mutasa, Bulawayo,
Gwanda, Matobo, Harare, Seke and Goromonzi
The business case should emphasize on the change in the revenues of the private sector actors due to the partnership, the
broader economic and social benefits of working with women in these geographies. It should highlight challenges, lessons
learnt, missed opportunities and recommendations for scale up and expansion.
The documentation should incorporate the achievements of the program in a structured manner, focusing on identifying the
specific factors of success, summarizing the actual actions being undertaken on the ground and describing the impact of
interventions on partners and program participants. The business case should combine human voices of the private sector
partners and target program participants through stories with results based on official reports from partners and the CEDIS
team.
The specific objectives of the assignment are as follows:
Develop three business cases across small scale manufacturing, waste management and productive use of renewable
energy.
Document business success stories and lessons learned from the implementation of interventions during the pilot
scale up phase of the program.
Create categorized information packs from compiled material for sharing with a wider audience.
Tasks and Responsibilities
To achieve the objectives envisaged, the consultant under the overall supervision of the CEDIS management team will work
in collaboration with CEDIS team
To determine the exact scope of the business cases and business success stories; identify and develop topics.
Prepare tools and formats that will be used for documenting the business cases and business success stories.
Conduct field work in the selected communities with CEDIS program and partner staff. This will include focus
group discussions, one-on-one interviews, key informant interviews, observations and visits to partners and
participants to elicit their views
Prepare business cases articulating key learnings from use of a market systems development approach working with
private market actors by engaging women in the informal sector and develop business success stories by analysing
and presenting relevant information about program implementation.
Produce content, photographs and infographics for an info-pack highlighting success stories and including voices
of project participants and other stakeholders.
Deliverables and Timeframe:
The consultant will deliver to Mercy Corps
An inception report demonstrating understanding of the tasks in the Terms of Reference (ToR) and how they
propose to accomplish the required tasks within the indicated timeline
A high-quality information pack of three business cases and six business success stories
All deliverables should be submitted to Mercy Corps, CEDIS project management, within a maximum of 40 working days
from signing of contract
Supervision:
The consultant will work under the direct supervision of the MEL and Communications team
Qualifications and Experience
Qualifications and experience
The individual, firm or proposed team should possess the following qualifications
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– A university degree in Business Administration, qualifications in Communications or related fields are an
added advantage
– Minimum of 5 years in research and evaluation with experience in data collection, analysis and reporting,
especially focusing on business cases.
– Professional experience in market systems development, market linkages, value chain analysis and/or
development.
– Excellent written and oral skills in business case development, storytelling and report writing
– Proven experience in working with international organizations
– Photography skills and experience
– Excellent editing skills and ability to integrate human interest with statistics and technical reports to present
credible content.
– High sense of journalistic ethics and in-depth understanding of ethical issues in data collection
– Ability to deliver products on time against tight deadlines.
– Demonstrates initiative, creativity and flexibility
How to Apply
Language:
advantage)
● Excellent written and spoken English (understanding of local languages especially Shona and Ndebele is an added
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our
organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the
collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect,
where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and
collaborates to do the best work of their lives.
We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening, and evolving to become
more diverse, equitable, and inclusive than we are today.
Equal Employment Opportunity
We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities
are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination based on race, color, gender identity, gender expression,
religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military
veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.
Safeguarding & Ethics
Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our stakeholders and
to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging communities as equal
partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. Team members are expected to conduct themselves
in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values always and in all in-
country venues.
Application Instructions:
Send a Cover Letter, Resume and a detailed proposal to impact stories and learning briefs documentation outlining the
consultant(s) understanding of this task, proposed methodology, work plan and budget before application deadline 13
August 2025, via zw-procurement@mercycorps.org. In the case that applicants are a firm or a group, kindly include CVs
of the individuals that will be involved in the assignment clearly stating their roles and registration documents (including tax
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clearance certificate). While submitting your application, be sure your email subject line is CEDIS-BS-EOI (Your Name)
Important Note:
● A candidate who will apply only by sending a CV to the designated email will not be considered.
● Please group all your documents into PDF.
● A signed consultancy agreement and Scope of Work will be the main documentation required in consultant
contracting.