Terms of Reference -Review of Agri – Nairobi – GROOTS Kenya

1. Project Information
GROOTS Kenya is currently implementing an initiative entitled “Accelerating Rural Women’s Access to Agricultural Markets and Trade” with funding from the JSDF administered through the World Bank. The official closure date of the project is 31st March, 2017.The project’s development objective is to contribute to women farmers’ economic empowerment and improved livelihoods through improved agricultural production and access to markets. The project has so far directly impacted more than 3,500 rural households in two counties of Kenya (Nakuru County and Kitui County). The project is implemented using the value chain approach with a focus in dairy, indigenous poultry and horticulture. This project has five main components, namely:
(1) To organize women farmers to work collectively in order to economically empower and improve their livelihood;
(2) To enhance women farmers’ lobbying and advocacy capacities for essential services and factors of productions;
(3) To enhance women farmers’ business capacities and facilitate market linkages;
(4) To empower women to increase access to microfinance facilities to improve agri-enterprise performance;
(5) Project management, participatory monitoring and evaluation.

1. Objective of the Assignment
Under component 3: enhance women farmers’ business capacities and facilitate market linkages, the project is implemented using a participatory community approach with the objective of strengthening the primary beneficiaries’ production and business skills to fully maximize their participation and benefits from agricultural markets. In November 2013, the project contracted consultants who developed the necessary training materials (Trainers’ Guide, Learners’ Handbook and the Training Curriculum) in 5 main modules: dairy, horticulture, indigenous poultry, agribusiness and group organizing & strengthening.The project in March 2014,used such training materials to conduct 172 communities training where women farmers were trained by experts from the Ministry of Agriculture, South Eastern Kenya University (SEKU) and Egerton University. In April 2014, the project further trained 235 community coaches who have been instrumental in modelling best practices to other women farmers implementing the project. However these training materials require final review and edit prior to publishing.
Specific Tasks:
ü Review and edit a one of modules (Dairy/horticulture/indigenous poultry/agribusiness / Group organizing & strengthening) in these training materials to ensure that it is relevant to modern day learning, responsive to the status of the agriculture sector today and it take into account lessons learnt through the project farmers’ coaching model.
1. Required Skills:
Th consultant will be required to have the following minimum qualifications:
ü Strong understanding of the agricultural sector in Kenya
ü Demonstrated experience in developing training materials
ü Knowledge, skills and experience in a specific module of individual consultant’s interest (dairy/ horticulture / indigenous poultry / agribusiness / Group organizing & strengthening)
ü Demonstrated understanding & experience in gender and women empowerment
ü Excellent communication and writing skills
1. Deliverables:**
Revised and updated training module (Ready for publishing) that incorporate modern day development in the agricultural sector. The consultant must ensure that the revised module is gender sensitive and user friendly to community leaders as well as the extension service providers

HOW TO APPLY:
Application:
Applications are open to Individual Consultants only (Not Firms). Interested applicants must submit CV ONLY demonstrating their competence and experience to undertake this work. An individual consultant can only apply to review one module that is most relevant to their expertise. The five modules include;
1. Dairy,
2. Horticulture,
3. Indigenous poultry,
4. Agribusiness
5. Group organizing & strengthening.
Kindly send CV ONLY to admin@grootskenya.org by 1st March 2017.The application should be clearly marked on the subject as follows-Review of training materials-Dairy module or Review of training materials-Agribusiness module……………………………………………..
Female candidates are encouraged to apply.
NB: Consultants who have previously conducted assignments under this project are not eligible to apply.

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