WHO WE ARE
Come grow with us! If you are a passionate change agent who thrives in a collaborative, entrepreneurial and inclusive, culture committed to operational excellence, we would like to meet you.
At Resonance, you get involved in the work, in the field, not just in the deck. Our teams are autonomous and self-sufficient. You get to weigh in with founders and leaders on how to drive change and grow the movement while growing the company.
Resonance is an award-winning, Certified B Corporation consultancy that delivers market-based solutions to address the world's toughest challenges. We enable a variety of donor, commercial, and investor clients around the world to catalyze lasting impact. Resonance seeks to catalyze large-scale social, environmental, and economic change by fostering new and dynamic forms of collaboration. We do this by fostering public-private partnerships, facilitating sustainable investment, and providing deep analytical insights in frontier markets.
POSITION MANDATE
Digital commerce is a central growing feature of the global economy. But in the world’s least-developed countries, uptake remains low. Firms in emerging and frontier markets are not selling their products online because they do not have reliable internet access due to inadequate physical infrastructure, poor policy and legal infrastructure, and lack of political commitment. These barriers prevent entrepreneurs—especially women and members of other vulnerable groups—from taking advantage of digital commerce to reduce poverty, especially with cross-border trade in goods and services. The Digital Economy and Market Development (DEMD) project seeks to address the need for an open, transparent, and competitive digital commercial environment by supporting USAID Missions, Bureaus, and Independent Offices (MBIOs) to develop, implement, and measure cutting-edge approaches in the technical areas of digital economy development, trade capacity building, private sector development, and improving the business enabling environment.
Improvement to the digital economy has the potential to be catalytic in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The DRC has a population of 89 million, and residents earn an average of $557 a year. The country lags behind the region in connectivity as mobile phone penetration rates are only 26% (compared to 43% in the region) and only 9% of the population uses the internet. Furthermore, cost is a key barrier to internet access in the country as 1GB of mobile broadband costs on average more than 16% of a person’s total monthly income, making it unaffordable for many. The recent World Bank digital economy assessment for the DRC listed improving digital infrastructure, digital entrepreneurship, and digital skills as key priorities for the country. A 2019 World Bank report found that micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the DRC use technology in a limited way and identify lack of modern equipment and technology as a constraint. Entrepreneurs are interested in using technology to facilitate their commercial operations to increase production through automation. There is also a large gender and age gap in the use of technology. Additionally, while internet service providers (ISPs) are considered key players for the connectivity market to thrive in the country, these providers have not historically targeted the most vulnerable populations, leaving them unconnected.
The USAID/Democratic Republic of Congo (USAID/DRC) Mission sees the digital economy as a priority area for the country. In particular, improving digital economy directly relates to Development Objectives #2 (Community Resilience Increased) and #3 (Inclusive, Broad-Based, and Sustainable Economic Growth Increase) from the Mission’s most recent Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CDCS) published in 2020.
The USAID Digital Economy and Market Development project is seeking a Regional Digital Policy Specialist Consultant for a limited term, part time engagement, who will support efforts to increase internet connectivity, through an assessment of the local digital policy environment. The Regional Digital Policy Specialist will be supported by a Digital Policy Specialist, based in DRC. The Regional Digital Policy Specialist will lead the development of a detailed DRC Digital Policy Report consisting of an overview of relevant digital/broadband regulations in DRC and neighboring or relevant comparator countries, with a focus on regulation and policy related to telecommunications and internet service provision, and innovations for expanding internet access, including a gap and SWOT analysis of the current policy/regulatory environment and recommendations for prioritizing policy and regulatory interventions and/or advocacy efforts. The report will also include a list of completed key stakeholder interviews and a summary highlighting priority takeaways from the interviews.
The Regional Digital Policy Specialist consultant will provide support in identifying and coordinating outreach to various regional stakeholders in the digital ecosystem including any associations or organizations representing consumers of digital communications services (whether businesses or private individuals), digital service providers (mobile, fiber, satellite, or other service providers), and public sector officials and regulators. The consultant will oversee the work of the Digital Policy Specialist, collaborate with activity partners and report to the DEMD Activity Manager based in Washington DC.
OUTCOMES / ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS
The Regional Digital Policy Specialist consultant will be responsible for completion of the Digital Policy Report. The report development process will consist of executing the following five key deliverables:
1. Annotated bibliography of desk research conducted by Regional Digital Policy Specialist with support and inputs from the Digital Policy Specialist. The bibliography should include a list (with links where possible) of all reports, articles, assessments, legal and regulatory texts, or other relevant information referenced as part of initial desk research, along with a brief (less than 5 sentence) summary description of the document and its relevance to the Policy Analysis.
2. Interview guide and list of target Stakeholders. The Regional Digital Policy specialist is responsible for compiling (with support from the Digital Policy Specialist) a list of target stakeholders for interviews including any associations or organizations representing consumers of digital communications services (whether businesses or private individuals), digital service providers (mobile, fiber, satellite, or other service providers), and public sector officials and regulators. The Regional Digital Policy Specialist will also lead the development of interview guide(s) to support primary data collection. This may include multiple versions of the guide tailored to different stakeholder groups.
3. Annotated outline of Policy Analysis. The Regional Digital Policy specialist will lead the development of a draft outline for the final Policy Analysis document incorporating findings from both the desk research and interviews. The outline should cover the current DRC policy environment, critical issue areas constraining service provision, any plans for new or reformed regulation, examples from comparator countries and preliminary recommendations for regulatory reform and areas of policy advocacy. The annotated outline should not exceed 5 pages.
4. First Draft of DRC Digital Policy Report. The Regional Digital Policy Specialist will lead drafting of the report overseeing and incorporating any inputs from the Digital Policy Specialist.
5. Final Draft of DRC Digital Policy Report with final list of interviews and bibliography of desk research. The Regional Digital Policy Specialist will lead finalization of the report including incorporating all edits and feedback from commentors. The detailed report will consist of an overview of relevant national and regional digital/broadband regulations, with a focus on regulation and policy related to telecommunications and internet service provision, including regulations around licensure and registration at the national, regional and/or municipal level, and innovations for expanding internet access, including a gap and SWOT analysis of the current policy/regulatory environment and recommendations for prioritizing policy and regulatory interventions and/or advocacy efforts. The report should include an overview of ineffective or unenforceable policy that has limited growth in internet service provision with a specific focus on innovations in digital connectivity/access (particularly for rural communities) and provide both long-term and short-term suggestions for implementing similar, successful policy (possibly building on examples from comparator countries in the region or globally), taking the DRC context into consideration. The final report should not exceed 30 pages.
IMPLEMENTATION PLAN AND TIMELINE
DRC Digital Policy Report: Conduct a policy analysis to create a baseline understanding for the digital economy regulatory environment in the DRC. Outputs from the policy analysis will include a ‘watch list’ of relevant upcoming regulations, a deeper understanding of gaps in the current policies, and prioritized list of advocacy activities that can be undertaken to further enable internet service provision.
Deliverable 1: Annotated Bibliography.
· Conduct policy desk research on regional digital regulations; identify gaps in regulations related to the digital economy from the national and regional perspective.
Deliverable 2: Interview Guide and list of target Stakeholders
· Develop list of key stakeholders for outreach, schedule and confirm interviews
· Develop guiding interview questions
January 2023:
Deliverable 2: Interview Guide and list of target Stakeholders
· Conduct <1 week of interviews with digital policy experts in comparator countries
· Conduct 1 week of interviews with digital policy experts in DRC
Deliverable 3: Annotated outline of Policy Analysis.
· Develop annotated outline for policy analysis report
February 2023:
Deliverable 3: Report on Digital Policy
· Based on information collected during desk research and stakeholder interviews, identify gaps in regulatory approach to digital economy environment and propose concrete approaches to address them, including potential advocacy efforts
Deliverable 4: First Draft of DRC Policy Report
· Review and comment of report draft
Deliverable 5: FinalDraft of DRC Digital Policy Report with final list of interviews and bibliography of desk research.
· Finalized report incorporating feedback from first draft.
Total LOE: 14 Days
REQUIRED EDUCATION & EXPERIENCE
- Master’s degree or higher in a field related to economics, international business, international relations, law, public policy or similar.
- Minimum of ten years of experience conducting research on Digital Regulations and Policy specifically focused on internet service provision or working with public and private sector actors on Digital Regulations and Policy related to internet service provision.
- Experience leading research teams and overseeing work of technical experts
- Professional relationships with or connections to businesses and industry associations engaged in digital service provision (mobile, fiber, satellite, or other service providers).
- Professional relationships with or connections to public sector stakeholders and institutions who support or regulate digital service providers within DRC is preferred.
- Must be fluent in English.
- Preferred experience working on digital policy issues in DRC and one or more of the following: Kenya, Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire, South Africa
- Full time employees of the Government of the DRC are not eligible unless on leave of absence.
- Experience working on USAID projects preferred.
TRAVEL EXPECTATIONS
The consultant must be able to travel domestically and/or internationally – at least one trip planned for this role.
WORK ENVIRONMENT AND PHYSICAL DEMANDS
This position operates in a professional office environment, and routinely requires the use of standard office equipment such as computers, phones, printers, photocopiers, and filing cabinets.
The physical requirements described here are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job.
As a part of the responsibilities for this job, the employee is required to communicate, detect, converse with, discern, convey, express oneself, and exchange information orally and in writing with others. The employee must be able to remain in a stationary position, sitting at a desk for prolonged periods, move or traverse inside the office and facilities; operate, activate, use, prepare, inspect, place, detect, or position computers and other office equipment, such as a calculator, copy machine, furniture, and computer printer. The employee must be able to make substantial repetitive motions of the wrists, hands and fingers. The employee must be able to lift and move up to 15lbs at times.
AAP/EEO STATEMENT
The Equal Employment Opportunity Policy of Resonance is to provide a fair and equal employment opportunity for all associates and job applicants regardless of race, color, religion, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, gender identity or expression, and sexual orientation) parental status, genetic information (including family medical history) political affiliation, military service, age, veteran status, disability, or marital status, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. These protections extend to all management practices and decisions, including recruitment and hiring, appraisal systems, promotions, training, and career development programs. Consistent with these obligations, Resonance also provides reasonable accommodations to employees and applicants with disabilities and for sincerely held religious beliefs, observances, and practices.
Resonance believes that employees should be provided with a working environment which enables each associate to be productive and to work to the best of his or her ability. We do not condone or tolerate an atmosphere of intimidation or harassment based on any of the above-mentioned characteristics.
We expect and require the cooperation of all employees in maintaining a discrimination and harassment-free atmosphere.
Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Only candidates selected for interviews will be contacted. No phone calls or emails please.
