IFDC Job Vacancy For Lead Consultant

he Technologies for African Agriculture Transformation (TAAT) program goal is to radically transform African agriculture from subsistence-type to agriculture as entrepreneurship and business to support the «Feed Africa» pillar of the African Development Bank’s agricultural development strategy.  TAAT is increasing agricultural productivity in Africa through the deployment of proven and high performance agricultural technologies at scale along selected value chains, such as rice, maize, cassava, wheat, sorghum and millet, orange-flesh sweet potato, high-iron beans, livestock, and aquaculture. TAAT operates as a network of interacting “compacts,” with nine devoted to specific commodity value chains and six serving as “enablers” that provide specialist services, such as soil fertility, water management, capacity building, youth, policy, and Fall Armyworm control.

IFDC’s role is to lead the TAAT Soil Fertility Enabler, is to scaling up agriculture input-based technologies for accelerated productivity growth, resilience, and improved livelihoods in contributing to the overall TAAT purpose, impact and outcomes throughout three objectives which are to (i) facilitate a responsive private sector-led input delivery system to support the scaling up of agricultural input-based technologies, (ii) facilitate access to finance and markets to catalyze a large-scale adoption of input-based technologies, and, (iii) upscale proven input-based technologies (i.e Fertilizers Deep Placement, Micro-Dosing, and Soil Mapping and Recommendations Transfer) approaches for developing balanced fertilizers for crops in the 7 crops commodities compacts.

Like all the 15 TAAT compacts & Enablers, the Soil Fertility Enabler is built around four major components which are : (i) creation of an enabling environment for deployment and adoption of food production technology by famers (ii) setting up a Regional Technology Delivery Infrastructure, (iii) deployment of appropriate food production technologies and (iv) program management.

Under sub-component 2.2 of the IFDC implementation work plan “Strengthen agro-input dealers’ capacity and networks to support commodity compacts/value chains”, IFDC is to work with STTA (short term technical assistants)/consultants to train agro-dealers and equip them to support the compacts. IFDC intends to recruit a lead consultant to coordinate agro-dealer activities in the TAAT Soil Fertility Enabler compact under the supervision of the Compact Coordinator. The lead consultant will be assisted by 2 to 3 local consultants to cover activities in about 20 compact countries.

Tasks:

• Make an inventory of available agro-dealer training materials
• Adapt training curriculum in collaboration with Compact Leaders to reflect the technologies to be upscaled (Annex 1)
• Translate materials in multi languages, print, distribute or load to ICT tools for dissemination
• Identify a core group of agro-dealers to train as "Trainers"
• Make logistical arrangements for the training
• Train the Trainers in multi-country settings of an Anglophone group and a Francophone group
• Develop a step-down training schedule
• Assist the Trainers to conduct step-down training for other agro-dealers in the respective countries to support the compacts
• Coordinate agro-dealer training activities with the CDTO (FARA)
• Coodinate and manage Ghana country partnership for TAAT project

Deliverables:

The consultant will be expected to produce the following deliverables:

• A database of available agro-dealer training materials
• Adapted curriculum for agro-dealer training
• A database of agro-dealers to be trained as Trainers in each country (selected in collaboration with the compact leaders, IFDC field staff, agro-input dealer associations)
• Organize training for Trainers (TOT)
• Develop a step-down training schedule with the Trainers
• Assist the Trainers to deliver step-down trainings
• Produce reports of training

Timing, Duration and Place of Work:

The consultancy duration is 90 days strating from May 20, 2019. The work will be done primarily in Accra and Ouagadougou with travel to other compact countries as needed.

• Applications of the individual consultants will be evaluated based on the criteria mentioned above and the selected consultant will be invited for further discussion and negotiation.
• Consultants interested in this call must submit an Expression of Interest highlighting the execution and experience of similar contracts and a detailed CV.
• Expressions of Interest (EoI) must be submitted by e-mail to the following address: [email protected] with copies to [email protected] not later than the 20th May 2019 at 12:00 GMT.
• IFDC Secretariat reserves the right to accept or reject any or all of the EoI or annul the EoI process at any stage without assigning any reason(s) whatsoever and without incurring any liability to the applicants. For more information, please consult the attached terms of reference of the mission.

Required Skills

• A least a Master’s degree in an appropriate field in agriculture
• Excellent oral and written communication skills in English and working knowledge of French
• Ability to work and manage the study independently, including managing local consultants.
• The local consultants will have similar profiles.

Required Experience

• At least 7 years of work experience in fields related to agro-dealer training, technology transfer, fertilizer policy and/or use