Terms of Reference: Consultancy to Support Media and Construction Labor Teams
Almost a quarter of the world’s population lives in substandard shelter, impacting their health and livelihoods and their children’s education. Since 1976, Habitat for Humanity has helped more than 35 million people worldwide improve their shelter conditions. Yet, Habitat’s construction efforts alone cannot keep pace with the massive and growing need. In fact, no response by governments or private philanthropy alone can meet the shelter needs of 1.6 billion people. Habitat for Humanity thus established the Terwilliger Center for Innovation in Shelter to explore strategies for making housing systems work more inclusively for people in need of decent, affordable housing.
About This Initiative:
The Terwilliger Center strives for transformational innovations for adequate housing at the Base of the Pyramid. The Terwilliger Center’s five Shelter Venture Labs, country-specific programs that function as social innovation platforms and a principal way the center ideates and prototypes novel solutions to the challenge of affordable housing.
The center’s innovation process usually starts with a series of unconnected experiments in one or more Labs, which are then brought to the larger cohort of Labs and other teams within the center, to learn from one another. Further experimentation in the Labs and other geographies then takes place as the center strives to standardize the innovation and lay the groundwork for more widescale adoption. Examples of such innovations include ShelterTech (programming to support housing startups and entrepreneurs), housing microfinance, and MicroBuild (programming to catalyze capital for low-income housing finance).
Two of the center’s more recent experiments are in the media and housing space, primarily in the Kenya and Philippines Labs, and housing construction labor, in all five Labs. It is these two areas of innovation that the center is now looking for strategies to move out of ideation and prototyping and into a path that holds potential for more wide-scale adoption in other geographies. As a foundational step, the center plans to convene a group of specialists focused on the Media theme and Construction Labor theme, respectively to strategize around standardization and adoption. To that end, we seek a consultant to support each of these themes.
Key Responsibilities:
We seek a consultant who can work alongside the center’s appointed lead for both of these themes and provide facilitation, coordination, documentation, and administration support. All support will be provided virtually. The candidate will have a strong and readily demonstrated track record of using market systems development methodologies and experience in both affordable housing, media, and construction labor. Experience in the Philippines or Kenya is preferred.
* Over a 6-month contract, we estimate the consultant will devote the following hours to this contract: * Coordination of the teams – 30 hours/month * Facilitated team sessions – 10 hours/month * Administration – 20 hours/month * Strategy documentation – 20 hours/month.
DELIVERABLES: * Work plan for each theme * Facilitated meetings * Strategy documentation for each theme * Final report
How to apply
To apply please submit a short proposal attn: Sheldon Yoder no later than October 15. The proposal should include an itemized budget, description of relevant experience, and general plans for carrying out the requested activities. Questions are welcome. Please email Sheldon Yoder, syoder@habitat.org.