Consultancy: Cost of Doing Business & Formalization Study - Juba, South Sudan

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.

ABOUT THE COST OF DOING BUSINESS STUDY

Background and Project Description

South Sudan hosts more than 500,000 refugees and 2 million internally displaced people, and has adopted a National Durable Solutions Strategy to promote sustainable livelihoods and economic inclusion. Inkomoko believes that entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and private sector development are key to achieving long-term self-reliance for displacement-affected populations.

Micro and small businesses – roadside vendors, boda-boda riders, retail kiosks, tailors – are a core survival mechanism for refugee and host-community families in South Sudan. These businesses are widely reported to face multiple, overlapping formal and informal charges: municipal levies, market dues, sanitation and security contributions, business-council fees, and checkpoint-related extortion, often un-receipted, inconsistently enforced, and backed by harassment, goods confiscation or forced closure for non-payment. This pattern is widely recognised internally but has never been systematically documented or quantified, nor is it clear which specific charges drive the burden most, or why it persists.

A related, deeper gap sits upstream: it is unclear whether the real barrier is formalization itself, or whether it starts with access to an accepted ID, since refugee ID is not recognized in the national system and this affects eligibility for business registration, bank accounts and registered SIM cards. Given the sensitivity of the information involved – including extortion and checkpoint payments – this assignment requires an external consultant with established trust and access in South Sudan, as clients are unlikely to disclose this level of detail to Inkomoko staff or a research fellow.

Background on the context:

Globally, over 120 million people are forcibly displaced, including 44 million in Africa, making forced displacement one of the world's most pressing development challenges. South Sudan hosts more than 500,000 refugees and 2 million internally displaced people (IDPs) and has adopted a National Durable Solutions Strategy to promote sustainable livelihoods and economic inclusion. Inkomoko believes that entrepreneurship, financial inclusion, and private sector development are key to achieving long-term self-reliance for displaced populations. Since its establishment in 2012, Inkomoko has supported over 100,000 MSMEs across five African countries, invested USD 25 million in affordable finance, generated USD 60 million in client revenue, and created 93,000 jobs. Since launching operations in South Sudan in 2023, Inkomoko has expanded its services to entrepreneurs in Juba, Gorom, Maban, and Mangala, supporting the economic integration of refugees, IDPs, and host communities.

Purpose of the Study.

This study will systematically document and quantify the true cost of doing business – formal and informal – for refugee and host-community entrepreneurs in South Sudan, and test whether business formalization delivers real returns. Specifically, the study will answer three linked questions:

- Documentation access – What does it actually take, in process, cost and time, for a refugee or host-community entrepreneur to obtain an accepted ID and a registered SIM card, and how far does the lack of an accepted refugee ID limit their ability to formalize a business or open a bank account?
- True cost of doing business – What is the official schedule of taxes and fees a business is legally required to pay, versus what entrepreneurs actually pay once informal levies, checkpoint payments and inflated municipal charges are added, and how does this differ by refugee/host-community status and by formalization status?
- Does formalization pay off? – Testing the hypothesis that formalized businesses still face many of the same informal charges, but grow faster, earn more, and operate with more confidence than unformalized peers, to assess whether formalization is a genuine route out of the informal-tax trap or an added layer of cost with no real protection.

Scope of the Study.

- Geographic scope: Juba (urban market, business-council and checkpoint dynamics) plus at least one refugee-hosting location outside Juba – e.g. Gorom settlement and/or the Maban camps – so findings reflect both urban and camp-based markets. Exact sites to be confirmed with the consultant based on access and client density.
- Comparative sampling: at each site, sample comparatively on (i) refugee vs. host-community entrepreneurs and (ii) formalized vs. non-formalized businesses, disaggregated by gender given the concentration of women in Juba’s micro-enterprise sector and their disproportionate exposure to extortion.

Documentation:
Inkomoko will support the Consultant in obtaining the necessary documentation and facilitating a conducive environment for the assignment. This will include the RRC letter, security clearance, and where applicable support in scheduling some interviews with key stakeholders. Given the sensitivity of the information involved (informal payments, checkpoint extortion), the Consultant is expected to have a deeper knowledge on who to interview, anonymize sources and apply appropriate data protection protocols throughout.

Mobility:
All mobility-related costs, including internal and external flights, transportation for data collection, accommodation, and other related expenses, should be included in the Consultant’s financial proposal and managed directly by the Consultant.

Analytical Approach

The study will apply the following analytical lenses, examining:

- Political economy and power mapping – identify duty bearers, winners and losers, and power dynamics, noting that curbing informal payments may affect influential actors.
- Comparative analysis – refugee vs. host-community entrepreneurs; formalized vs. non-formalized businesses; urban (Juba) vs. camp/settlement (Gorom/Maban) markets; disaggregated by gender.
- Regulatory baseline – review of the relevant regulatory and tax framework (e.g. the 2012 Ministry of Justice Act provisions on business registration) to establish the formal baseline against which informal costs are compared.
- Fiscal case for government and relevant actors – clearly articulate the financial benefits to government through increased tax revenues resulting from business growth and formalization of both refugee-led and host-led enterprises.
- Triangulation – cross-check survey findings against Inkomoko’s 2025/26 client revenue and cost data where available.
- Ethical and risk-sensitive data collection – anonymizing sources of sensitive information (checkpoint payments, extortion) to prevent host-refugee conflict, conflict with officials, or retaliatory acts.

Methodology

The consultant is expected to propose a mixed-methods approach that clearly demonstrates how it will answer the study’s three research questions. The methodology should be:

- Participatory, involving relevant stakeholders throughout the study process.
- Inclusive, ensuring consultations with all relevant stakeholders and considering gender, age, disability, and other vulnerability factors.
- Sensitive to local context, social norms, and cultural considerations, particularly given the political sensitivity of documenting informal payments and extortion.
- Ethical, ensuring safe data collection, informed consent, confidentiality, privacy, and other relevant ethical considerations.
- Quantitative – a client cost-mapping survey capturing formal and informal costs relative to revenue, categorized by charge type (licensing/council fees, market dues, sanitation and security contributions, checkpoint payments), and disaggregated by refugee/host-community status, formalization status, and gender, triangulated with 2025/26 client revenue and cost data where available.
- Qualitative – key informant interviews with clients, business councils, and municipal/state officials on formal and informal payment practices and the ID/SIM registration process, alongside a review of the relevant regulatory and tax framework.

Expected Deliverables

- Inception Report – outlining the consultant's understanding of the ToR, proposed methodology and sampling plan (covering the comparative aspects: refugee/host-community, formalized/non-formalized, urban/camp, and gender), a detailed work plan and timeline within the 30-day assignment spread between September - November 2026, a budget, and draft data collection tools.
- Draft and Final Study Report – submitted in both Microsoft Word and PDF formats, structured around the three research questions, including an executive summary, policy gap assessment (absence versus enforcement) including a political economy analysis, methodology, findings, conclusions, and actionable recommendations for program and advocacy use.
- Advocacy Brief – a concise 2–4 page, numbers-based summary of key findings (e.g. “of 100 businesses, X face Y”) and accompanying stakeholder analysis and power influence maps to underpin 2027 engagement. This includes government line institutions/ministries, development partners, the private sector, and refugee & host entrepreneurs.
- PowerPoint Presentation – summarizing the methodology, key findings, and recommendations, for the validation workshop and dissemination to Inkomoko, government and partner stakeholders.
- Datasets and Supporting Files – clean, anonymized quantitative and qualitative datasets, codebooks, data collection tools, and analysis scripts. The consultant will be required to sign a non-disclosure or data-sharing agreement (NDA) given the sensitivity of the information collected.

Timelines
Indicative Timeline (30 working days, hard stop 30 November 2026):

- Week 1 (by 18 Sept): Consultants submit expressions of interests including proposed budget and study approach.
- Week 2 (by 24 Sept): Selected consultant submits study inception report.
- Week 3 (28–30 Sept): Consultant onboarding, signing of non-disclosure or data-sharing agreement (NDA), tool design, and finalization of the sampling plan.
- Weeks 4–6 (29 Sept – 23 Oct): Data collection across Juba and the selected settlement/camp site(s).
- Week 7 (26–30 Oct): Analysis and drafting of the study report,
- Week 8 (02-06 Nov): Presentation of the findings to internal Inkomoko team
- Week 9 (09-13 Nov): Validation workshop with stakeholders.
- By 30 Nov: Final report, advocacy brief, PowerPoint, and datasets/supporting files submitted – hard deadline – end of the 30-working-day assignment.

Requirements

Required Qualifications and Experience

- An advanced degree (Master’s or equivalent) in Economics, Development Studies, Public Policy, Statistics, Business Administration, or a related field.
- At least five (5) years of experience conducting research on informal economies, business environment/regulatory studies, taxation, or private-sector development in fragile or displacement-affected contexts.
- Demonstrated experience working with refugee and displacement-affected populations, ideally with prior engagement with UNHCR or South Sudan’s Commission for Refugee Affairs (RCA).
- Established professional trust, networks and access in South Sudan, particularly in Juba and Gorom, given the sensitivity of the information involved (informal payments, checkpoint extortion).
- Proven ability to design and safely implement sensitive data collection – anonymizing sources and preventing host-refugee tension – including informed consent and confidentiality protocols.
- Experience engaging government and regulatory stakeholders (e.g. Revenue Authority, Chamber of Commerce, immigration, police) is an added advantage.
- Strong quantitative and qualitative research and analytical skills, including cost-mapping or household/enterprise survey methods.
- Excellent report-writing and communication skills in English.
- Ability to deliver within a compressed 30-day timeline spread between September - November 2026, against a hard final-report deadline of 30 November 2026.

Interested consultants or consulting firms should submit:

- A technical proposal outlining the proposed methodology, work plan, and implementation schedule.
- A financial proposal detailing all costs associated with the assignment.
- Company profile (for firms) and/or curriculum vitae (CV) of the lead consultant and key team members.
- Evidence of at least two similar research/study assignments completed within the last five years.
- Contact details for at least three professional referees.
- At least one sample research report or study demonstrating experience conducting similar assignments.