Terms of Reference (Tor) for Ethiopia: Market Saturation Assessment

ABOUT INKOMOKO

Inkomoko supports entrepreneurs to grow their businesses in order to improve livelihoods, create jobs, and help communities thrive.

In 2026, Inkomoko was listed by the Financial Times as the 5th fastest-growing company in Africa, supporting entrepreneurs across East and Central Africa to grow thriving businesses and build inclusive, resilient economies.

Founded in 2012, Inkomoko has worked with more than 120,000 entrepreneurs, including thousands of refugee entrepreneurs. Inkomoko provides a combination of training, consulting, access to finance, and market-level systems change. We are the largest investor to refugee entrepreneurs in Africa.

Inkomoko has 1,000+ staff in 50 offices across Chad, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and South Sudan. Through Inkomoko’s 2030 strategic plan, we are adding 3 additional countries to serve more than 550,000 entrepreneurs and growing our $30M loan fund to impact 7M lives.

INKOMOKO VALUES

All staff at Inkomoko are connected to a shared set of organizational values:

Purpose: be solutions-oriented, produce high-quality work, and be a global leader.
Achievement: push yourself to reach beyond what you previously thought possible.
Improvement: be humble, engage in continuous growth through open & accurate feedback
Bravery: willing to take risks, create a safe space for others, be compassionate, and inclusive.
We Eat Goat: we celebrate success and support each other in hard times. We do this work together in the spirit of turikumwe, tuko pamoja, abren nen, Kula na sawa, On est ensemble.

Inkomoko is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Refugees, women, and persons who reflect the diverse communities we serve are strongly encouraged to apply.

1. BACKGROUND AND RATIONALE

Since 2022, Inkomoko Ethiopia has delivered an integrated business growth package — cohort training, one-on-one BDS, market linkage, and concessional loans — to refugee-owned micro and small enterprises (MSEs) across seven locations. This work is grounded in Ethiopia's Refugee Proclamation No. 1110/2019, which grants refugees the right to engage in self-employment, and is aligned with UNHCR's Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework.

In recent operational cycles, program teams have encountered a consistent and worsening challenge: difficulty recruiting new clients — both existing business owners and idea-stage entrepreneurs — into cohort-based intake. Specific symptoms include exhausted referral networks, repeat identification of the same individuals across recruitment cycles, declining attendance at outreach events, and shrinking pools of first-time applicants. If left unaddressed, this trend threatens program and operation continuity in existing locations of operation.

This Terms of Reference commissions a formal Market Saturation Assessment to determine — with rigorous, triangulated evidence — the total addressable market of eligible refugee-owned MSEs in each location, how much of that market Inkomoko has already reached, and how many years of viable intake remain. Findings will directly inform strategic decisions on program continuation, service model adaptation, geographic expansion, or phased exit.

2. MARKET SATURATION: DEFINITION AND INDEX

A market saturation assessment is a structured analytical exercise that measures the extent to which a service provider has penetrated its Total Addressable Market (TAM) within a defined geographic and demographic boundary. The central question is: of all eligible potential clients in a location, what proportion has Inkomoko already served?

This approach is well-established in development programming. Comparable frameworks include: UNHCR Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion (LEI) Assessments, which estimate viable self-employment opportunities in refugee-hosting areas; IFC MSME Market Sizing methodology, which calculates the gap between potential and actual service reach; IRC Airbel Market Opportunity Mapping, which scores markets by saturation level and growth potential; and CGAP financial services penetration studies across Sub-Saharan Africa.

Inkomoko’s Saturation Index (SI) Definition

The SI will be calculated at the overall location level and disaggregated by demographic sub-group:

Women-owned MSEs (primary owner is female)
Youth-owned MSEs (primary owner aged 18–35)
Women and youth combined (intersectional)
Idea-stage pool (economically active refugees intending to start a business within 12 months)

NOTE: The consultant could propose other saturation index ratings based on practical experiences.

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSESSMENT

Overall Objective

To determine the Total Addressable Market of refugee-owned MSEs across Inkomoko Ethiopia's seven operational locations and calculate an evidence-based Saturation Index, generating data sufficient to guide strategic operational decisions through 2030.

Specific Objectives

Establish the verified TAM of refugee-owned MSEs per location through triangulated desk research, satellite analysis, and field enumeration.
Calculate the overall SI and demographic sub-group SIs (women, youth, women-youth, idea-stage) for each location.
Estimate program runway in years under optimistic, baseline, and pessimistic scenarios.
Map the sectoral composition of MSEs per location to identify crowded and underserved sectors.
Assess macro-economic and livelihood context, including poverty levels and enabling environment factors.
Gather stakeholder intelligence on future market trends, planned policy changes, and UNHCR/Gov’t RDP developments.
Develop location-specific strategic recommendations for saturated locations.

4. SCOPE

The primary focus of this assessment is refugee/IDP-owned MSEs operating in the seven locations i.e Kebribeyah, Awbare, Sheder, Sherkole, Tsore, Bambasi and Addis Ababa. Since host-community entrepreneurs are always present in and around these sites and share the same markets, the assessment will only focus on studying refugee/IDP owned MSEs.

5. METHODOLOGY

The assessment employs a proposed mixed-methods design with four sequential, interlocking phases. Findings are triangulated across all phases before the Saturation Index is finalized.

Phase 1: Desk Research and Secondary Data Analysis

The consultant will review secondary sources to establish a contextual baseline and preliminary TAM estimate for each location before field work begins. Key sources include:

UNHCR Ethiopia population data portal and Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion reports,
RRS camp registration and livelihood program records,
Ministerial, Zonal and Woreda-level Trade, Industry and Market Development Office data on registered enterprises (where available),
Refugee Registration Stamps (RRS) / RRS work permit records, which provide a partial count of economically active refugees with formalized self-employment,
WFP food security and household economy assessments (EFSA/mVAM),
CSA woreda-level population data for host community sizing,
World Bank / IMF macro-economic indicators for the relevant regions, and
Other NGO assessments and livelihoods program reports from DRC, IRC, GOAL, Save the Children etc

Inkomoko will share with the consultant aggregated program reports showing the total number of clients served per location from 2022 to 2026, broken down by gender, age group, and business sector. These figures — which exclude any client-level identifying data — will serve as the baseline for the Saturation Index numerator. Client-level data will not be shared.

Phase 2: Satellite and Geospatial Analysis

A geospatial specialist (within the consulting team or sub-contracted) will conduct a pre-field remote sensing analysis of each location using high-resolution satellite imagery (e.g. Google Earth Pro, Planet, or Maxar imagery where available). This serves to: (a) estimate market and commercial zone density before field enumeration begins; (b) identify the boundaries and sub-zones of each camp or settlement for enumeration zone mapping; and (c) provide a cross-check against field enumeration results for anomaly detection after data collection.

The geospatial specialist will deliver: a density heatmap per location showing estimated commercial activity concentration, a zoned enumeration area map for each site (used by field enumerators in Phase 3), and a post-enumeration spatial validation layer comparing enumerated GPS points against satellite-identified commercial structures. The satellite analysis will be presented as a standalone sub-section in the final report.

Phase 3: In-Person Field Enumeration

Trained enumerators will conduct a systematic location-based enumeration (SLE) of all refugee/IDP owned MSEs within each site. Each camp or settlement will be divided into enumeration zones (EZs) derived from the Phase 2 satellite maps and confirmed with camp management and RRS before fieldwork. Enumerators will traverse every EZ and record each identified business using the structured MSE survey (Annex A), administered via KOBO/SurveyCTO on mobile devices with automatic GPS and photo capture.

A household rapid assessment (Annex B) will be administered to a stratified random sample of households per location to estimate non-fixed and home-based MSEs and the idea-stage entrepreneur pool — segments not fully captured by a physical walk-through.

Phase 4: Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs)

Qualitative data collection contextualizes quantitative findings and generates forward-looking stakeholder intelligence. A minimum of two FGDs and three KIIs per location will be conducted (see Annexes C and D for discussion guides):

FGD 1 — Active refugee business owners (mixed sector, client and non-client)
FGD 2 — Women and/or youth entrepreneurs, including idea-stage individuals and host community business owners
KIIs — RRS camp management; UNHCR livelihoods officers; Woreda Trade Office; refugee market association leaders; representatives of other BDS or finance providers in the location

Phase 5: Triangulation and TAM Finalization

Following field work, the assessment team will triangulate: the desk research TAM estimate, the satellite density estimate, the field enumeration count, and Inkomoko's aggregated program reach data. Where divergence between sources exceeds 20%, the consultant will investigate the cause and document the resolution in the methodology section of the final report. The final validated TAM per location will carry a documented confidence range.

6. SAMPLING APPROACH

The consultant must propose a rigorous, well-justified sampling strategy in the Inception Report that clearly links sample design to the assessment's TAM estimation and SI calculation objectives. The strategy must be statistically grounded and must address the specific enumeration characteristics of each location. Minimum requirements are as follows: