Philippines Workers Organization Issues Market Research RFP

The Humanitarian Leadership Academy is seeking proposals from interested organizations to undertake market research on the supply and demand of learning products & services for humanitarian workers in the Philippines. The Academy’s mission is to enable people around the world to prepare for and respond to crises in their own countries.

The Academy operates two major platforms a digital platform and a global network of Academy Centres – designed to facilitate access to knowledge and quality learning opportunities. The platforms exist as a global public good, and act as a marketplace to connect learning providers to humanitarian workers.

The Philippines Academy Centre wishes to understand the current state of the local market of learning opportunities for humanitarian workers.

The Academy aims to achieve transformational change across the humanitarian sector, empowering and equipping local governments and communities to prepare for and respond effectively to crises. The Academy will comprise a Global Academy Centre (GAO) and ten on-the-ground Academy Centres around the world, which will be underpinned by a global digital platform that will enable the delivery of learning opportunities, sharing of knowledge and good practice, and conversation across this network of Centres.

In its initial set-up phase to 2020, the Academy will use its core grant funding to invest in developing its infrastructure of 10 Academy Centres, the global digital-platform and a quality-assurance framework for humanitarian skills. Each Academy Centre will invest in identifying and addressing any critical gaps in local skills by paying for the development and roll-out of learning courses. The digital-platform will include an online marketplace enabling local people to access curated learning content,  which will be aggregated from existing course providers, translated and contextualised for local settings.

Objective of the research

The goal is to enable the Philippines Academy Centre to develop its local strategy into a detailed business plan, which aims to create value consistent with the Academy’s long-term mission and ensures that the products and services which are offered in the Philippines remain relevant to the market. This will enable the Academy to develop a sustainable long-term business model by offering services which are valued and which can raise revenue in the future.

Specifically, the study will provide in-depth insights into the landscape and profiles of the Centre’s future customers and other stakeholders in order to understand:

• The types of learning products that are on demand and for which people are prepared to pay;
• The perceived range and quality of learning products in the local humanitarian market; and
• Perceptions that are held about the existing learning providers and learning products & services.

The study will also seek to identify and document:

• Key providers of grant-aid funding for the humanitarian sector in the Philippines, what this is specifically provided for, and requirements for accessing the grants;
• The landscape for private funding (e.g. philanthropy and Corporate Social Responsibility) focussing on resourcing for the humanitarian sector; and
• Other sources of funding such as co-financing options and opportunities with the public and private sector

Scope of Work

This research should enable the Philippines Academy Centre to understand the following key areas of the market. There are five sections of the research to be completed in 2 phases:

Phase 1

1. Humanitarian context and capacity; build upon the existing research conducted by the Academy (Annex B) by conducting a desktop-based review and summary of existing literature on
   • disaster preparedness and response within the Philippines,
   • previous humanitarian learning and capacity-building initiatives within the Philippines

Phase 2

2. Individuals; research the number and profile of:
3. Professional
4. voluntary and
5. aspirational humanitarian workers who have a demand for learning, including their career-status, motivation to undertake learning, willingness to pay and to commit time. We anticipate this work will require competencies in commercial market-research.
6. Employers; assess the demand (and potential demand) from humanitarian organisations, which should consider how they currently provide learning for their staff (either in-house or via third-party providers) and their ability to hire  staff with the right experience and competencies. We anticipate this work will require competencies in business-consulting/research and knowledge of professional learning & development.
7. Suppliers of learning and quality-assurance; map the supply of  learning products and services available from both learning providers and providers of relevant quality-assurance (formal recognition, certification and accreditation). It should analyse their business models and financial health to help identify any challenges they face in sustaining and scaling their operations.
8. Funders; Identify and quantify the relevant funding available for humanitarian learning in the Philippines. This includes the funding available to professional, voluntary and aspirational humanitarian workers, enabling them to fund appropriate learning. It should also include the sources of funding available for humanitarian organisations in the Philippines, who the initial recipients are and how this funding flows through the supply-chain to smaller NGOs and front-line humanitarian workers.

Proposal due by December 12 to:

Humanitarian Leadership Academy
Sustainable Enterprise Adviser Humanitarian Leadership Academy
Attn: Dara Leyden
1 St John’s Lane
London, EC1M 4AR