Growth of our humanitarian portfolio is a key part of BBC Media Action’s strategy in Africa. We are currently seeking one or more experienced consultants to help our country teams in Nigeria, Somalia and Ethiopia expand their work in humanitarian communication.
BBC Media Action has responded to crises in multiple countries in Africa and we work in several contexts where protracted emergencies are ongoing. We already operate a multi-country humanitarian capacity strengthening project in Somalia and Nigeria and have identified these two countries, alongside Ethiopia, as the principal focus to explore growth in our humanitarian work.
Our teams in these contexts are seeking support to better understand the humanitarian funding landscape (including where that merges with Anticipatory Action / Early Warning Early Action) and to develop an expanded set of humanitarian projects to offer to a range of potential new partners and donors.
The main objectives of this support would be to:
- Develop and begin to implement a sustainable business development strategy for humanitarian activities in Somalia (supported by the Kenya office), Ethiopia and Nigeria.
- Build the capacity of Media Action teams in these three countries to engage in sustainable business development activities in the humanitarian theme.
In doing so, the support would ideally help country teams to identify at least three viable new funding sources for humanitarian work in each country, with a clear plan for successfully securing funding from one of these sources before the end of 2023 and beyond.
In particular, the support would be responsible for:
- Map existing relationships and conduct a market analysis to identify opportunities for humanitarian business development in Somalia, Ethiopia and Nigeria, focusing on areas of unmet need where BBC Media Action could add most value to existing humanitarian responses.
- Alongside country colleagues, develop an outline humanitarian business development strategy for each country, including step-by-step recommendations for implementation.
- Alongside country colleagues and our technical advisers, develop outline project concept(s) and associated pitch materials, targeted to specific opportunities.
- Building the capacity of country programme teams to advance humanitarian business development – including supporting improved understanding of humanitarian funding mechanisms and donors.
- Alongside country teams, engaging with potential funding partners to form relationships and pitch ideas.
- Regularly liaising with the regional director, the central business development team and the advisory team to share insights and progress; and to ensure efforts are aligned with overall business development and thematic strategies for the organisation and region.
- Making recommendations around the likely return on investment in a full time staff role focused on humanitarian business development in the region.
We are interested in hearing from consultants who would like to be engaged in one or more of Kenya (for Somalia), Ethiopia or Nigeria for 20 days’ consultancy per country, ideally staggered over a period of around 3 months per country. We will consider applications from consultants interested in this work in one, two or all of these countries. The consultant should already have knowledge and understanding of the donor environment in the given country and be able to travel within that country as required.
To express an interest in this work, please email [email protected] before 1st April 2023 with your CV and a covering email, outlining what qualifies you for this role, which countries you would be interested in supporting, and your availability over the next six months. Please also indicate your fee rates.
