Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Adeso Small Business Management Skills Consultant Trainer – REGAL-IR Job in Kenya

Small Business Management Skills Consultant Trainer – REGAL-IR

Organizational Context 

Adeso is an expanding and vibrant African based international development and humanitarian organization. 
 
Adeso, we work with African communities who are yet to realize their full potential; working inside these communities to create environments in which Africans can thrive. Our belief that economic, social and environmental security is the bedrock of a healthy community drives the nature and intent of our programming. 

We work to prevent and overcome situations that adversely affect community well-being by: reinvigorating the economy, developing skills for life and work, providing humanitarian aid, and influencing policy. 

For the past 20 years we have strengthened rural livelihoods through environmental awareness, training, technology transfer and innovative humanitarian projects in pursuit of a peaceful, self-reliant, and greener future. 

Currently, Adeso has programs in Somalia, Kenya and South Sudan.
Adeso is an exciting and dynamic organization experiencing managed rapid growth. It offers sound employment conditions with opportunities for personal growth and development. 

Project Background and Rationale

The Resilience and Economic Growth in the Arid Lands - Improving Resilience (REGAL-IR) project, is a five-year Cooperative Agreement (CA) that is a part of the U.S. government’s feed the Future (FtF) initiative and USAID/Kenya’s economic growth development objective. 

The projects objective is to reduce hunger and poverty, increase social stability and foster economic growth by improving social, economic and environmental resilience in five counties in Kenya, namely-Garissa, Wajir, Marsabit, Isiolo and Turkana counties. 

This is because the targeted counties have over the years experienced recurring shocks e.g. droughts, hazards such as climate change and recurring turbulence caused by frequent violent conflicts ranging from internal disputes between tribal groups in Kenya, to cross-border confrontations with groups from neighboring countries, and coupled with the spill-over effects from regional conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

The project led by Adeso is being implemented by a consortium of organizations namely Co2balance UK and its Kenyan subsidiary Carbon Zero Kenya (CZK), Finnish Church Aid (FCA), the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), Sidai Africa, Ltd and Vétérinaires Sans Frontières-Suisse (VSF-S).

The project is geared towards addressing the six strategic objectives:
  • Strengthened and diversified livelihood opportunities;
  • Advancing Value Chain Inclusiveness;
  • Improved Management and Productivity of Natural Resources;
  • Improved conflict Management;
  • Improved Drought Management; and
  • Improved Consumption of Nutritious Foods. GAIN is focusing on the nutrition aspects of the project while FCA leads the peace building aspects. It is paramount that the consortium works effectively and in close collaboration to effectively coordinate the implementation of REGAL-IR activities.
The project aims at reaching a minimum of 558,000 individuals (93,000 households) in the five counties. However in the event of a crisis the number of individuals targeted will increase by up to 24,000 beneficiaries (4000 Households) per year.

This consultancy falls under strategic objective 1-Strengthened and diversified livelihood opportunities, whose goal is to improve the capacity of individuals and community-based enterprises to become more competitive in business and non-pastoral activities, thereby diversifying traditional subsistence livelihoods and increasing corrective resilience to environmental and other shocks. 

Most pastoralists combine livestock keeping with agriculture and petty trade, supplementing their income with remittances. 

Some of the key activities under this strategic objective include;
  • engaging the broader stakeholder community to determine which livelihood options are viable within the 5 counties and specifically within the target wards; 
  • assessing and building the capacity of local organisations to: 
  1. better serve their membership for livelihood development, 
  2. better organise producer and marketing associations and platforms to deliver skills and vocational training to members; and
  • providing targeted and market based livelihood training and small business development grants to women, youth, self-help groups, etc to enable them strengthen their businesses.
Towards this end, and in line with the community development action plans that were developed through the PLPA process, project staffs have been involved in mobilising communities by facilitating group formation or by working with already existing groups. 

These groups have established saving’s and lending components, geared towards growing their individual and group based enterprises. 

To ensure that these pastoral community groups develop their entrepreneurship mind-set and are equipped with basic business skills, it is imperative that REGAL-IR field staff receives hands-on Training of Training on these and other business management related topics-introduction to small business management, recording keeping, costing and pricing, profit and loss, marketing and development of business plans.

Objectives and Scope of Work

The goal of the assignment is that about 25 project field staff have gained the attitude, knowledge and skills to conduct trainings for community members in entrepreneurship and small business development. Overall, the trainings for community members, who are often illiterate, must be effective in promoting significant diversification and economic growth of their households

The consultant will work in a consultative manner with the Technical Advisor-Livelihoods, to deliver the following specific objectives:

1) Basic ToT (February 2014): 
  1. Conduct a training needs assessment with all participants 
  2. Design tailor-made contents and approach for the ToT on the basis of the manual ‘Small Business Management Skill – a community based approach’, including all six modules. The training approach must be based on methodologies for adult learners. The final training design must be approved by the project LH TA, CBC and DCoP. 
  3. Conduct pre-training AKS assessments with all learners. 
  4. Provide 5 days (TOT) training on Small Business Management Skills to field based project staff. 
  5. Conduct a post-training AKS assessment with all learners
    . Evaluate the training impact for project staff. 
  6. Provide recommendations for project staff follow-up and backstopping. g) Produce a training report in English with the contents of point 1-6; maximum 15 pages
2) ToT Upgrade (June 2014):
  • Conduct a training needs assessment with all participants
  • Design tailor-made contents and approach for the ToT upgrade on the basis of the manual ‘Small Business Management Skill – a community based approach’, including all six modules. The training approach must be based on methodologies for adult learners. The final training design must be approved by the project LH TA, CBC and DCoP.
  • Conduct pre-training AKS assessments with all learners.
  • Conduct 3-days TOT upgrade training on Small Business Management Skills to field based project staff.
  • Conduct a post-training AKS assessment with all learners and evaluate the training impacts for project staff.
  • Provide recommendations for project staff follow-up and backstopping. g) Produce a training report in English with the contents of point 1-6; maximum 10 pages
Expected Outputs
  • One basic ToT and one ToT upgrade for about 25 project staff.
  • Training manuals for each of the two trainings.
  • Training reports for reach of the two trainings.
Timing And Reporting
 
This consultancy will be for a maximum of 16 days, level of effort and the tentative period of performance will be from February 13th to June 30th 2014. The table below indicates a tentative schedule.

Activity Timeline:


Description Tentative Dates No. of Working Dates Training needs assessment and preparation of the training. 1 day Travel to training site. 1 day Conduct pre-training AKS assessment. Conduct basic ToT. Conduct post-training AKS assessment. 5 days Prepare report 1 days Return trip 1 day Training needs assessment for the ToT upgrade and preparation of the training. 1 day Travel to training site. 1 day Conduct pre-training AKS assessment. Conduct basic ToT. Conduct post-training AKS assessment. 3 days Prepare report 1 days Return trip 1 day Total Number of Working Ways 16 Days

Details of the work plan will be proposed by the consultant and approved by the LH TA.

Competency and Expertise Requirements

Any individual or team of consultant(s) with the following qualifications is highly welcome to apply:
  • Advanced university degree in business management, development economics, social sciences or any other relevant technical field.
  • Proven track record of at least 5 years experiences in providing training (TOT) in entrepreneurship mind-set development, market assessment, business development, and livelihood diversification for rural and pastoral communities.
  • Proven track record in design, adaptation and development of training materials for adult learners.
  • Strong analytical, written and verbal communication skills.
  • Excellent multi‐tasking abilities and ability to work under pressure and to meet deadlines without supervision.
  • Must have excellent English communication, training and report writing skills.
How to apply:

Interested consultants should submit narrative and financial training proposals, including a cover letter with detailed individual profiles, including core areas of expertise, and experience with similar activities to consultancy@adesoafrica.org with the subject line: Application for Small Business Management Skills Consultant Trainer not later than 13th February 2014, including the following documents:
  • A proposal – Maximum 4 pages
  • Daily rates quotation and at least two references from previous clients in your application
  • A Bio-data form in a complete SF-1420 format.
Once the quotation and training proposal is accepted by REGAL-IR, an institutional contract will be offered to the selected applicant. Terms and conditions of institutional contract will be provided during the contract signing.

Payment will be made only upon satisfactory delivery of services and approval of the narrative report submitted by the consultant after the training.

The consultancy fee will be charged a withholding tax as per organization and government policy. Only short listed candidates will be contacted.