Private Sector Development Programme: Market Systems Development – ELAN 1.2 The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has huge economic potential. There are 80m hectares of uncultivated arable land, vast mineral resources and over half of Africa’s water. This is countered by a very difficult business environment with very little industry. DRC ranks 184 out of 190 on the World Bank’s Doing Business survey. It performs particularly badly on contract enforcement, getting electricity, paying taxes and trading across borders. Recovery of the private sector in DRC is vital; for job creation and poverty alleviation. DRC is a young and rapidly growing country, with an estimated population of 84m in 2018. Median age has remained steady since 2000 at 16.8 years old. Rapid population growth has implications for inclusive growth as DRC’s GDP growth rate of around 3.7% and the population growth rate of 3.3% per annum resulting in only meagre improvements in per capita income. The youth ‘bulge’ in DRC will require the economy to create around 18 million jobs in the next 15 years. DFID in DRC has been supporting economic development through a Private Sector Development (PSD) Programme in DRC. It is a £120 million programme running from 2015 to 2023. The PSD programme has three distinct components ELAN, ESSOR and DSU. ELAN is the market systems development (MSD) component, worth £50m and has been operating in agriculture, renewable energy, access to finance and transportation. Supporting market actors, ELAN generates market insights, demonstrates innovation and builds capacity to improve the functioning of markets for poor people, leading to over one million poor people realising cumulative income increase of nearly £100 million. ELAN is an adaptive programme with the scope of expanding performing interventions while reducing or closing interventions that do not perform. The current management contract of ELAN will come to an end in July 2019. The ‘bridging’ contract is required to continue the momentum of ELAN and take it to the end of the programme period. This bridging contract, ELAN 1.2, is the subject of this Terms of Reference and will deliver DFID DRC’s market systems development intervention for up to 3 years, from June 2019. DFID has contracted a suitably qualified service provider to deliver the ELAN 1.2 programme. The Impact of this programme is “to reduce poverty in DRC by improving the income of poor women and men in selected market systems.” The purpose of these Terms of Reference is to set out the details and delivery expectations for a Service Provider to apply MSD approaches that will change market systems and improve the livelihoods of the poor in DRC by consolidating and expanding on the gains of the current ELAN programme whilst also widening the scope to include new intervention areas and approaches which will inform design of a larger, forthcoming Private Sector Development (PSD) programme. The Outcome of this programme will be “the performance and position of poor people within selected market systems is substantially improved”. This outcome may be measured by: The number of partner market actors successfully taking‐up pro‐poor innovations and investing to sustain their business independently, ensuring long‐term sustainability. The number of other market actors (e.g. competitors to those that the Service Provider works with) copying the pro‐poor changes or offering variations of it, including changes affecting women and the most vulnerable (e.g. Internally Displaced Persons / IDPs). % increase to the number of poor women and men accessing and using improved goods or services. % of interventions which benefit the poorest and most vulnerable women and men, including IDPs, men and women in the lowest wealth quintile, men and women living with disabilities, and adolescent/young women and men. The number of non‐competing market players who adjust their own practices in reaction to the pro‐poor market system change (i.e. those responding to the overall systems change). The number of young women and adolescent girls with access to economic opportunities. The recipient of this support will be private sector, financial institutions and not‐for profit organisations or partnerships thereof. The ultimate beneficiaries of the services are poor, vulnerable and excluded people of DRC, especially women and adolescent girls, in the agriculture, renewable energy and financial sectors, in up to 5 provinces of the DRC.