Background

Institutional instability is a major problem derailing sustainable production, governance and management of rural cooperatives and their ultimate profitability. Through democratic processes, the Cooperatives Act makes provision for members to elect new leaders/Board of Managements every year. With the project now being on their 3rd year of implementation, there has been like a complete overhaul of the leadership. Despite conducting this training in 2020, new leaders who have since come in and they lack a good understanding of these good practices to adequately continue steering the processes and development initiatives from the previous regimes. It has therefore become imperative to train the incoming teams on Financial Management, Entrepreneurship, Resource mobilisation, Good governance, Marketing skills, Nursery Business Case Management, good Governance & Leadership and jointly review existing Institutional Documents and provide recommendations on the development on non-existent or outdated documents.

Assignment Objective:

The overall objective of the assignment is to enhance the capacity of smallholder coffee cooperatives board members through training on Financial Management, Entrepreneurship, Resource mobilisation, Good governance, Marketing skills and Leadership. Further, the consultant jointly with respective board members will review existing institutional management documents (Strategic plans, Business plans, Human Resource Policy, Quality management/control policy and Anti-child abuse policy) geared towards cementing institutional stability. Solidaridad seeks to recruit a qualified firm/ consultant to facilitate the training of respective boards of management and jointly review institutional management documents and provide recommendations on the development on non-existent or outdated documents. The target is to train 14 benefiting cooperatives spread in 3 Counties (Nandi, Kericho and Bungoma).

Scope of Work:

This Terms of Reference (TOR) seeks to have the consultant conduct the following;

• Design a curriculum as well as develop training aids to build capacity of coffee cooperative societies/ farmer organizations on financial management, entrepreneurship, resource mobilization, governance, marketing skills and leadership for effective adoption and ownership
• Develop pre and post-training evaluation questionnaires to be used in each training session towards the assessment of the delivery and understanding of the trainees
• Design a training program using performance objectives provided as well as additional material contributed by the consultant out of their previous experience in handling similar assignments.
• Deliver trainings to 140 Boards of Management members on financial management, Entrepreneurship, Resource mobilization, Good governance, Marketing skills and Leadership.
• Jointly with cooperative board of management members review institutional documents prepared in 2020 (Strategic plans, Business plans, Human Resource Policy, quality management/control policy and Anti-child abuse policy) for the 14 benefiting cooperatives.
• Provide recommendations on the development on non-existent or outdated documents
• Develop and avail a tailored Monitoring and Evaluation System to assess training delivery and participants understanding as well as assessing and/or tracking adoption of these practices geared towards achievement of program objectives.
• Develop and share training reports and documents thus developed after every session.
• The consultant will present the manuscript flow for discussions during the inception meeting.
• Methodology.

The consultant will;

• Together with Solidaridad, map and Identify the target groups.
• Develop the training curriculum for review and validation by Solidaridad prior to commencing physical training.
• Review existing institutional documents for the 14 cooperative societies.

Deliverables:

• Work plan and expression of interest (EOI) for the assignment, outlining;
• A detailed methodology for implementation of the assignment.
• A detailed work plan for the work.
• An inception report before the commencement of the assignment detailing the approach, methodology and general concept to the entire process.
• Train 140 BOM members as guided by the training curriculum.
• Detailed report of the gaps identified and recommendations for closure of the gaps as well as provide recommendations on the development on non-existent or outdated documents.
• Final assignment report

Expert/Consultant’s Profile:

Qualified and experienced Consultancy Firms should develop a comprehensive expression of interest (E.O.I) outlining:

• A profile of the firm/consultant
• Firm/Consultants statement on the interpretation of the TOR
• Curriculum Vitae’s of consultant/firm outlining qualifications and demonstrable experience in training and developing institutional management documents (Strategic plans, Business plans, Human Resource Policy and quality management policy )on spanning not less than three years. Demonstrated expertise on agricultural cooperatives will be an added advantage

A description of the methodology

• At least 3 references of similar assignments undertaken in the last 3 years
• Sample of some of the works delivered including but not limited to: reports, presentations, training modules and samples of developed documents.
• A detailed financial proposal (inclusive of relevant taxes) and a work plan for carrying out the assignment