Overview

Banyan Global provides technical assistance and due diligence support to MCC's Social Analysis (SA) Practice Group, helping integrate social inclusion considerations into the design and implementation of MCC's agriculture, natural resources, environment, critical minerals, land and land policy, and related policy and institutional reform activities across compact and threshold programs. Banyan Global is currently supporting SA's due diligence and project design work in Zambia, ahead of the Zambia II Compact's entry into force.

The Compact consists of four Projects designed to address key constraints along Zambia's agriculture and agro-processing growth path. These projects focus on decreasing transportation costs in prioritized agricultural corridors, including the T5 (Trunk Road 5) corridor connecting North-Western Province's agricultural and mining areas to regional markets; increasing access to finance for investments in electricity, irrigation, logistics, and processing equipment and infrastructure for both men- and women-owned Agri-SMEs and project developers across agriculture value chains; reforming agriculture policy and strengthening related institutions to support private-sector engagement in agriculture; and catalyzing private-sector investment through the American Investment Mechanism (AIM).

The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a U.S. government agency that contributes to the safety, strength, and prosperity of the American people through time-limited investments that promote business growth and stability around the world. MCC works with partner governments to address binding constraints to economic growth through policy and institutional reform and infrastructure investments, with an emphasis on rigorous analysis and evaluation, country ownership, and durable results.

Overall Objective

Banyan Global seeks a Senior Survey Specialist to lead the development, implementation, and analysis of an integrated, mixed-method survey and focus group study of the T5 corridor. The survey will generate baseline data on corridor use, mobility, and transport constraints; agricultural production, marketing, and goods movement; agricultural equipment, asset needs, and financing; household decision-making and resource allocation; road, transport, and personal-security risks; and community awareness and participation in the planned interventions. Survey analysis will be descriptive and comparative, not population-estimating, with results disaggregated where cell sizes allow, by corridor zone, locality, sex, age, primary livelihood, farmer/market role, transport mode, and proximity to mining or planned road investment. Focus group findings will explain mechanisms, contradictions, and subgroup differences.

Tasks

Task 1: Plan, develop, revise, implement, and analyze a survey and focus groups to develop baseline data related to the points below.

This task involves overseeing the contracted survey firm's development and implementation of the survey and focus group instruments and providing quality assurance throughout fieldwork and data collection, including being present in-country for enumerator training and instrument piloting. It also requires leading data analysis and report writing to synthesize survey and focus group findings into a final report and presentation.

1. Improving access activity
   1. Security and safety risks affecting road, transport, and market use – including experiences of sexual harassment, exploitation and abuse, and other harassment or violence – and community perspectives on mitigation and prevention.
   2. Transport and market-access logistics for agricultural goods, including sources and use of market pricing information and preferred modes of transport.
   3. Household-level decision-making and resource allocation related to mobility, production, and market access.
   4. Public awareness of, and participation in, government and donor-led transport planning processes, including Constituency Development Fund planning.
2. Agriculture policy reform and institutional strengthening, with a focus on farmer behavior related to grain marketing, including engagement with the Food Reserve Agency and other market participants
3. Topics related to the Asset Finance Project, with specifics to be finalized during survey design.

Task 2: Support MCA-Zambia SA staff to understand the components of research planning for surveys and focus groups, including research questions, site selection, sampling strategies, informed consent, data recording, and oversight of data gathering.

Task 3: Provide periodic input into the design of compact activities, drawing on the consultant's experience, good practices from other organizations and projects, and findings from consultations, focus groups, and survey data.

Required qualifications

• At least 15 years of experience planning, designing, and overseeing mixed-methods research in lower and lower-middle income countries, with experience in sub-Saharan Africa and multi-lingual contexts required, experience working in Zambia a plus.
• Experience selecting and managing survey firms and enumerators.
• At least four examples analyzing survey data and writing reports that clearly summarize findings and recommendations for policy and or project design.
• Willingness to work collaboratively with “many cooks in the kitchen” on survey and focus group instrument development.
• Prior experience supporting MCC compact or threshold development or implementation preferred.
• Experience with one or more of the following: agriculture corridors, public private partnerships in the road sector, surveying rural populations, agri-SMEs, agriculture value chains, or impact investment funds.

Level of Effort and Period of Performance

The anticipated level of effort is 150-200 hours between September 2026 and February 2027. Work will be primarily remote, with travel to Zambia for enumerator training and instrument piloting. The Specialist should be available for meetings during working hours that overlap between the U.S. East Coast and Zambia time zones.