TOR- Technical Assistance Support to HiH E.A Building Inclusive Resilient Enterprises (BIRE) Project Full Time NEW

Job Description/Requirements

Ref: No. HIHEA/01-2025/PROG

Technical Assistance Support to Hand in Hand Eastern Africa’s Building Inclusive Resilient Enterprises (BIRE) Project

Submission closes on: 10th March 2025

February 2025

1. Background

Hand in Hand, Eastern Africa (HiH EA) is a registered as Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) in Kenya in 2011 with a mandate to operate within the Eastern Africa region. It is a member of the Hand in Hand Global Network that comprises affiliated organizations that mutually pursue the shared goal of poverty alleviation by supporting poorer communities to create sustainable enterprises and jobs. The organization strives to work with the marginalized communities in the areas of economic and social empowerment using a participatory approach aimed at helping people fight poverty and vulnerability. HiHEA approach on enterprise development is implemented through a tested 4 step model that comprises of seven training modules. The organization is currently present in 40 counties of Kenya, serving 25 field Offices.

Since registration, the organization has implemented various projects focused on enterprise development and anchored within varied sectors of the Kenyan economy and supported by various donors. In particular, the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA), Hand in Hand International (HIH I), IKEA Foundation, Swedish Post Code Lottery (PKL), The Coca-Cola Foundation (TCCF) have previously supported projects within the Agriculture, services and waste management sectors with satisfactory achievements.

Currently HIH is implementing its strategy (2023-2027) transformational goal which intends to amplify HiH EA’s enterprise development impact by doubling the reach of unemployed women, youth and men. To achieve this strategic goal, the following strategic pillars on sustainable enterprise development, strategic communication, people and processes, resource mobilization and management and partnerships and advocacy will be followed through. Further, to break the cycle of poverty and inequalities that entrap women and youth, HIH EA will continue to advocate for the development and implementation of policies and legal frameworks that create a wider array of opportunities for women and youth, and which will lead to their economic empowerment for the inclusive and sustainable development of the continent.

Between 2017 and 2024, HiH EA has been implementing the Enterprise Development in Rural Families (EDRF III) supported by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA). EDRF III was a successor to EDRF I and EDRF II both funded by SIDA since 2011. The anchor sector for EDRF projects has been agriculture and with a few micro-enterprises anchored on the services sector. On the other hand, HiH EA has implemented projects under the waste management sector mainly to build enterprises within the circular economy while assisting in waste management and environmental conservation. Waste management projects include: i). Waste as Business” (2018 – 2021) supported by Swedish Post Code Lottery (PKL); “Women in Waste – Environmental Entrepreneurs” funded by The Coca-Cola Foundation (TCCF); and “Waves of Change” (2020 – 2023) funded by Swedish Post Code Lottery (PKL).

Results from implementation of EDRF III indicate the interventions increased members net monthly income by 34% from KES 8,286 to KES 11,074 (by 27% among women from 7,547 to 9,572 and by 59% among men from KES 10,381 to KES 16,475); increased access to financial services (credit from 22% to 49%, savings from 33% to 91%); attained financial resilience of 46%; monthly saving increased from a baseline of 20% to a midline value of 33% to an endline value of 91%; while access to market increased from a baseline of 11% to an endline value of 60%. Survival rate increased by 54% from 40% to 94%. Women participation in decision making on income expenditure and large household purchases increased respectively by 8% from 90% to 98% and by 5% from 80% to 85%.

Key results from the waste management projects (2018-2020) showcased the results: 11,700 participants trained on impact and opportunities of waste, 91% noting their perceptions of opportunities in waste management had changed; 4,100 participants trained in waste management and enterprise development ; 1,584 environmentally friendly enterprises created with 2 recycling centres; 45% of entrepreneurs saw monthly incomes increase to EUR 80 or more, – a significant improvement vs baseline; 99% of participants reported project had positive impact on daily lives (by creating jobs, especially women and youth); women’s agency improved; and greater recognition of responsibilities, rights and laws relating to the environment among communities and government officials.

After this successful implementation of the SIDA-supported EDRF for 10 years, HiHEA learned lessons and gained experience on different strategies to reduce poverty amog the bottom of the pyramid beneficiaries. This knowledge informed the development of a new strategy for HiHEA whose objective is “To amplify enterprise development impact by doubling the reach on the number of unemployed women, youth and men served to 650,000, accelerate 30% of their enterprises, enhance their resilience and increase their profitability from Kshs 200 to Kshs 800 per day”. To implement the strategy, HiHEA requested SIDA for consideration to implement a new project that would contribute to the realization of this objective that is aligned to Kenyan priorities, global initiatives, and Group of Hand in Hand organizations.

In 2023, HiHEA presented a concept proposal to the Embassy of Sweden in Nairobi, who on their side appraised the concept that led to the development of a project proposal in 2024 now referred to as Building Inclusive Resilience Enterprises (BIRE), which SIDA agreed through a financing agreement to support for four years.

2. Building Inclusive Resilient Enterprises (BIRE)

The overall objective of the project is: To contribute to the wellbeing of the project direct project participants through reduction of poverty and exclusion among the populations, while the Project Purpose is: To develop viable enterprises that will contribute to move direct project participants in rural, urban and peri-urban areas of 15 counties in Kenya from poverty to middle income status as envisaged in Kenya Vision 2030. The project targets two major components: i). Waste Management implemented in Mombasa, Kilifi, Tana River, Kwale, Nairobi, Homabay and Kisumu Counties, and ii). Agriculture and Services implemented in Machakos, Makueni, Nakuru, Nyandarua, West Pokot, Trans Nzoia, Bungoma and Kakamega Counties. Both components will have two categories of beneficiaries, the bottom of the pyramid (BoP) and accelerator categories. A total of 29,740 direct project participants are targeted to benefit from the project activities composed of 80% women, 20% men and 40% among them will be youth. It is also planned that a total of, 20,818 viable enterprises will be developed sustainably to improve beneficiary average incomes by more than 100% and create 31,227 jobs. To achieve the desired outcome objectives, a combination of strategies including a market systems development approach, human rights & advocacy methodology, gender & inclusivity, and a Digitalization component will be used during implementation. The project has the following outcomes:

a) Enhancing the knowledge sharing and skills development of direct project participants and actors in all aspects of enterprise development and growth.

b) Improving appropriate market chains;

c) Enhancing the resilience of the enterprise to possible shocks;

d) Enhancing the organizational capacity for the implementation monitoring and evaluation.

2.1 Rationale for Building Inclusive and Resilient Enterprises (BIRE) Project

Development of BIRE was informed by lessons learnt from implementation of previous projects funded by SIDA within agriculture and services sectors and those funded by various donors supporting the four-step enterprise and job creation model of Hand in Hand. In particular implementation of Enterprise Development for Rural Families (EDRF III) and projects under waste management including Waste for Profit (W4P) project under the “Waves for Change” theme in the respective component sectors under which BIRE is anchored. The EDRF series of projects since 2011 and waste management projects since 2021 have showed entrepreneurial and job creation benefits to projects direct participants in different ways while at the same time enhancing the capacity of supportive respective sector actors and strengthening institutions and agencies in improvement of delivery of services in respective areas. The cooperation of various donors and HiH EA has been based on priorities of interest in delivering support that makes positive changes especially in poor people’s lives mainly targeted at the bottom of the pyramid value chain actors and ensuring rights-based approach to programming. Previous support also leveraged on the lessons learnt from previous cooperation and has led to deepening of mutual trust between HiH EA, Government of Kenya (GoK) and Government of Sweden (GoS) and respective donors including Hand in Hand Sweden, Hand in Hand International, Swedish Post Code, IKEA Foundation to name but a few.

BIRE was also informed by the analysis of the problems hindering the development of enterprises for job creation in the waste management, agriculture and services sectors especially among the BoP categories while at the same time taking cognizance of scaling up (acceleration) of existing previous enterprises. The consolidated problems identified and to be addressed under BIRE within the agriculture, services and waste management sectors are: 1) inadequate capacity of the MSEs on all aspects of enterprise development; 2) inadequate market chains supportive of development of viable enterprises and; 3) inadequate capacity for resilience not only to climate change but also to environmental degradation and external business shocks (Figure 1).

2.2 The project’s Theory of Change:

This was developed from the outcome of the problem analysis and as indicated in figure 2. The stakeholders, supported by multidisciplinary teams of experts concluded that for the direct project participants to have a high quality of life as envisioned in Vision 2030, they need to be supported to develop and or accelerate development of viable and sustainable enterprises by articulating enterprise development in threes areas of focus: 1) Waste management enterprises; 2) Bottom of the pyramid general enterprises and: 3) Accelerator enterprises, all cutting across the MSEs sector with engagement in the three areas of focus. For this to be realized, there will be need to support the enhancement of knowledge and skills on enterprise development; support development of market chains; and support capacity building to empower direct project participants build resilience of the enterprises to external shocks of climate change.

Further, the ToC took cognizance of the need to work to provide a conducive policy environment to all actors to articulate pathways that will be effective in addressing all the problems that hinder development of viable enterprises. This approach steers away from provision of handouts and puts in place mechanisms and strategies for building capacity of project direct participants to pull themselves out of poverty thereby ensuring sustainability of project benefits.

2.3 Relevance of BIRE

Relevance of the project to the Country’s, host county’s priorities, HiH EA focus on enterprise development for job creation, as well as Swedish Strategy for development cooperation was assessed and showed alignment as:

Country priorities: BIRE responds to the Kenya Constitution 2010 and guided by regional and global initiatives and commitments that are in line with national interests. It also responds to the Swedish Development Cooperation with Kenya 2021-2025 as well as to Kenya’s Vision 2030, Bottom-up Economic Transformation Agenda (BETA) for services, agriculture and MSE sectors including the Micro Small Enterprise Authority (MSEA) Strategy (2020-2024); the MSE Policy for Wealth and Employment Creation (2020); and the Agricultural Sector Transformation and Growth Strategy (ASTGS 2019-2029); the Medium Term IV plan that aims at the transformation of the Micro, Small Enterprise (MSE) economy through promotion of financial access, building capacity and linking MSEs to markets; and the County Integrated Development Plans (CIDPs) whose thrust is to spur economic developed while assuring inclusion and environmental sustainability.

Relevant to HiHEA Strategic Plan 2023-2027 since BIRE strongly anchors on strategic pillar 1, sustainable enterprise development as it delivers on strategy objectives of: 1) growing enterprise viability, 2) strengthening the resilience of enterprises and building their capacity for survival, and 3) entrenching evidence-based and quality programming and mainstreaming a Market Systems approach.

Relevant to Sweden’s Country Strategy for Development Cooperation 2021-25 as it responds principally to result area 3, inclusive economic development with focus on improved conditions for productive employment and decent work, and for free and fair trade as well as spreading tentacles to delivery of results under result area 2, environment, climate and sustainable use of natural resources result area 1, Human rights, democracy, the rule of law and gender equality, the SHGs provide opportunity for collective action for mainstreaming human rights principles.

2.4 Overall Goal, Purpose and Intervention Focus of BIRE

Project overall goal: To contribute to the wellbeing of the project direct project participants through reduction of poverty and exclusion among willing people in rural, urban and peri-urban areas. It is a vision that HiHEA shares with other associated HIH network of institutions globally. In over 10 years HiHEA has made significant progress in improving livelihoods of women, men and youth through implementation of the EDRF I – EDRF III and projects in the waste management sector, however poverty and unemployment are still rampant in Kenya and especially among the women and youth.

Project Purpose: To develop viable enterprises that will improve incomes and create employment among the direct project participants with a focus to moving the marginalized women youth and men from living below poverty, earning less than KES 200/p/d to middle income level, earning KES 1100/p/d as envisaged in Kenya’s Vision 2030. Among the characteristics of a viable business include commercial viability i.e. the business must make enough profit to sustain itself without requiring subsidy from the owner; it must generate adequate income to provide the owner with means to afford decent living; the business must be legitimate to avoid altercation with authorities; environmentally friendly and it must be solving a social/economic problem to ensure sustained demand among others.

The purpose level developmental objective will be achieved by: (1) enhancing the knowledge and skills of the direct project participants on all aspects of their enterprise development and growth; (2) improving appropriate market chains of the enterprise; (3) enhancing the resilience of the enterprise to possible shocks including environmental, economic and social; and (4) enhancing the organizational capacity for the implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

2.5 Implementation Strategies

To foster competitive, inclusive, and resilient enterprises, this project will deploy the strategies:

Context specific Market Systems Development (MSD) approach: This will ensure delivery in a highly non-homogeneous nature of enterprises and entrepreneurs and to accommodate expected diversity of challenges especially within the accelerator and BoP entrepreneurs in the agriculture and services sector while core MSD approach will be deployed in the enterprises within the waste management cohort of entrepreneurs. The aim is to develop the capacity of entrepreneurs to increase productivity, entrepreneurship, and innovation aiming either to introduce or leverage disrupters and take advantage of resulting opportunities, respond effectively to shocks and stresses, and solve their own problems. Entrepreneurs will also be equipped with capacity for agency necessary to advocate for changes and reforms in development and administration of regulations, taxation, standards, and policies as part of the supportive environment to address systems level constraints.

Deployments and customization of the HiH 4-step model: The 4-step model used by HiHEA has assisted to build the entrepreneurial capacity of the BOP direct project participants and to graduate to more informed MSEs. This model will customized and deployed cohort of new direct project participants (BoP) after identification of needs. The model will be modified and married with the already developed curriculum for accelerator enterprises to be able to address social mobilization, business development while tackling agency and basic systems level constraints as an attempt to infuse MSD principles.

Gender Focus with Deliberate women and youth support: BIRE implementation will deliberately explore opportunities for women, youth, and marginalized groups to participate in business beyond subsistence and strengthen ways to better link these groups to markets and focus on these groups’ economic empowerment. The project will deepen efforts such as: facilitation to promote market-based skills development; support to create savings groups and aggregate production; access to financial services and technologies; conducive policies for enterprise growth; and other evidence-based collective arrangements which help these groups in the society overcome constraints to engaging in and benefiting from market systems as producers, entrepreneurs, business owners, and workers.

Environmental Resilience: While BIRE will be pursuing economic empowerment oriented towards profits, the environment within which the enterprises will be undertaken needs to be secured and protected with particular emphasis on reduction, minimizing and elimination of possible carbon footprint. The project implementation strategies to be applied will be aimed at building capacity of direct project participants and the local actors to develop, plan, disseminate, and promote sustainable productivity-enhancing technologies, and scale adoption to increase enterprise profitability while building resilience and protecting ecosystems through climate smart and environmental conservation approaches. On the other hand, the project will also build the capacity of direct project participants and actors to anticipate risks and develop tools to address them, and increase adoption of risk-mitigation tools, such as insurance as well as strengthen enterprise, and systems resilience by increasing connectivity, diversity, and enhance capacities to absorb and cope with shocks and stressors and change practices to strengthen resilience to future occurrences.

Rights approach: BIRE will adopt a rights approach including deployment of Rights Way Forward (RWF) methodology with the aim to support the target participants to identify and advocate for their rights including building their capacity to advocate for recognition in the policy framework evidenced by being able to access fiscal and monetary instruments that contribute to sustaining incomes generated from their engagement in building MSEs in the respective sectors.

2.6 Capacity for implementation

During the development of the project, it was assessed that although HiHEA has capacity for implementation, it was recommended that there will be need to infuse a technical assistance support facility whose objective is to deepen knowledge of the project implementers at national and regional level. This was also a need that was foreseen in the HiHEA strategic plan. In view of this, HiHEA will procure technical assistance to meet this objective.

3. Technical Assistance to BIRE

The Technical Assistance (TA) support to BIRE is a facility to be anchored within the organizational management of BIRE to provide technical and management expertise in the implementation of the project in accordance to the Project Document (PD), agreement between SIDA on HiHEA and all other relevant documents regarding BIRE implementation.

3.1 The specific objectives of the technical assistance are:

i) To deepen the knowledge on the application of the Theory of Change within the BIRE organizational management.

ii) Strengthen the understanding and application of Market Systems Development (MSD) among the implementing parties at both national and regional offices where the project is implemented.

iii) Strengthen the understanding and application of resilience of the supported businesses to environment and climate change

iv) To strengthen the integration of gender-responsive strategies into project activities, ensuring inclusivity and equitable participation.

v) To strengthen monitoring, evaluation, communication, and knowledge management in the Project implementation.

vi) Support the Innovation grants’ management.

vii) To support the development and implementation of an advocacy framework that amplifies the voices of target communities and influences relevant policies development and implementation.

viii) Enhance mutual accountability in programming, and bilateral relations in project implementation, including support during bilateral review meetings, quality assurance of all technical and financial reports for accountability.

ix) To strengthen the incorporation of digitalization strategies into the project activities

x) Support and guide in the implementation of inception activities with priority on project baselines, capacity needs assessment of the various project cohorts, MSD market assessment, and review of the project results framework.

3.2 Scope of Work;

The consultant(s) will support HiHEA address the key problems that hinder MSEs development in waste management, agriculture and services sectors to spur development of viable businesses that improve incomes and create jobs for the purpose of reducing poverty among their households. The TA will be expected to provide technical and operational management support for the development of viable enterprises within the target sectors with particular focus on the following:

A. Enhancing knowledge and skills on enterprise development among beneficiaries

B. Developing appropriate market chains

C. Enhancing resilience of enterprise development

D. Enhancing capacity for the implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

The TA will also be required to develop and discuss an inception report to cover their planned support detailing a flexible indicative work plan and associated budget which will be implemented in a demand driven approach to avoid duplication of inputs. The scope also requires that the TA will provide other reports aligned to reporting requirements of the project.

3.3 Categories of Technical Assistance

There will be two categories of TAs, the longer term and the shorter term. The longer term are the TAs expected to spend more time with implementing parties guiding on how the project scope will be realized and support the management in the implementation of financing agreement. It is expected that during the first two years, the effort of this category of TA will range from 25% to 50% of the time but should not exceed a total of 18 months for the whole project period. These will include the 1) TA Team Leader (TL) who will work with Chief Programs Office and Project Manager both answerable to the CEO and will be responsible for ensuring TA support is better coordinated and delivered, contractual obligation are fulfilled, programmatic quality assurance (QA) of the project implementation across all the outcome and output objectives as well as the monitoring and evaluation and TA reports are provided as agreed; 2) TA Business Development Lead (BDL) who will work with project manager to support the market system development within and across the project outcomes and output objectives, ensure innovations implementation is guided by the principle of business success. .

The second category of TAs will be those that will be required to support implementation on specific thematic issues requiring a time to time one-off/call-in by the different project specialists. Their efforts are estimated to be less than 25% and should not exceed a total of five months of the whole programme period with greater effort of this proportion during the first two years.

Inputs/TA_Effort months/days (higher proportion during first 2 years)

Longer-term TA Team Leader/Program QA 8 months

Longer-term Business Development Lead (BDL) 7 months

5 months

Short-term Business development

Short-term waste and environment management

Short-term Gender and Human rights

Short-term Digitization

3.4 TA Profile and requirements

The consultant team shall (as a whole) represent broad experience and competence in business development across all sectors with bias in waste management and rural development. In addition, the team should have competencies and experience on capacity and organizational development, including, enterprise development and entrepreneurship, group dynamics, resilience to climate change and natural resources management and gender equality, human rights and project cycle management. The TA team should have vast knowledge and experience on the Kenyan economy and demonstrated capacity to work with stakeholders at all levels. The experience and competence of the team should be such that it will be able to actively contribute to holistic integration into all project activities of the aspects referred in the scope above. Experience in the functioning of NGOs and the Kenya Government administrative systems will be required.

Pre-requisites on the personal qualities of the TA staff will be high. They should:

a) Be team players with a commitment to promoting professional status, mentorship, and career of others at all levels.

b) Be adaptive, open to new experiences and eager to find constructive solutions

c) Demonstrate a high degree of personal integrity and professionalism.

d) Have flexible time plans to be called at short notice

e) Should have experience to contribute to many project objectives without compromising the quality of the TA support

3.5 Application for technical Assistance

Applicants are requested to propose one each of the longer-term positions as well as the alternative for each as well as a team of the short-term positions in accordance with the terms of reference and job descriptions provided. Applicants should also demonstrate their capacity to identify and mobilize additional specialist competences required in the implementation of specified tasks.

3.6 Technical Assistance Quality assurance and quality control

Applicants are required to present a Quality Control System, in the tender, including structure for the system, presentation of key staff involved and anticipated costs for the implementation of the system. The quality control system presented should focus on, but not be limited to, the quality and effects of the services provided by the Technical Assistant.

The project management will commission a performance evaluation of the TA support as part of the project’s midterm evaluation.

3.7 Reporting and documentation

TA will be expected to write reports aligned to project agreement and as need may arise from time to time either from HiH EA, SIDA or TA. There will however be four types of reports expected from the TA, 1) inception report; 2) regular reports aligned to the project financing agreement; 3) completion report and 4) topical reports demanded by the project and or those initiated by the TA.

The inception report will be develop within the first week of signing of engagement contract. This report shall present an external analysis of the understanding of the theory of change, how TA will structure to provide the needed support during the contract period and the associated budget. The report should explore opportunities that will make the implementation of the project more effective and efficient. In addition to making a comprehensive analysis of the project management, implementation and results framework, the report should provide recommendation, specifically on how the project can be organized to deliver better outcomes. The draft inception report shall be presented and discussed with project management and other partners of the project including Embassy of Sweden in Nairobi, HiHS and HiHI.

The regular reports aligned to project agreement include semi- and annual reports that align with respective outcome objectives and specifically the TA contribution towards achieving respective output results. These reports should also make an assessment of the overall implementation of the specific output objectives. A summary of this report shall be made by project manager and form part of the overall project report for the specific period.

Topical reports will be written as may be required from time to time by project leads and as may be found necessary by the TA team leader. The objective of the reports required by project/theme leads shall have been approve by project manager and the TA Team leader.

3.8 Technical Assistance administration

The TA shall operate from their offices and will have no specific operational offices at HiHEA. However, the long-term TAs will have frequent physical consultations with HiHEA Project Manager, CPO and the CEO and the specialists implementing the project at national and branch offices. The regular demand-driven tasks will emanate from Project Manager, CPO and CEO with specific agreed deliverables. Transport to offices within Nairobi will be the responsibility of the TA while travel to branch offices will be catered for by the project. The short-term TAs will be linked to the respective relevant project officer responsible for the task/thematic to be undertaken in consultation with the TA team leader.

Considering that the long-term TAs will be working closely with the project management, they are expected to provide the logistical support to the TA facility in consultation with project management and especially as regards activities taking place outside national office.

3.9 Reimbursable costs

Reimbursable costs for TA support will be limited to travel, accommodation and airtime incurred by the TA in the performance of the tasks requested. Project management will however endeavor to provide their transport to the TA to travel outside Nairobi organized activities when required.

3.10 Taxes

The TA service will pay taxes in accordance to existing tax laws and the financing agreement. All applying firms shall indicate the level of taxes in their financial quotation.

3.11 Technical Assistance evaluation criteria

The following evaluation requirements and criteria will apply:

i) The applicant should provide evidence of participating in similar TA arrangements

ii) Applicants should provide proof of professional qualification of their identified long-term TAs regarding competence and experience in areas described in Annexes.

iii) Applicants should provide proof of engaging professionally qualified short term TAS with required competence and experience in areas described in Annexes.

iv) Applicants should demonstrate ability to benefit from complementarities from both short-term and long-term TAs.

v) The proposed professionals should have demonstrated experience on the respective areas and have performed their tasks timely and professionally.

Based on these requirements, the following criteria will be used to select the successful candidate:

a) Relevance and quality of the technical proposal (40%).

b) Experience and qualifications of the consultant(s) (30%).

c) Financial proposal (20%).

d) References and examples of previous work (10%). or inquiries

3.12 Contracting

HiH EA is planning to contract a consultant firm with a capacity to provide technical Assistant expertise with skills on the thematic areas highlighted above. The firm must provide a detailed outline of the qualifications and experience of the team. Preference will be given to those firms with in house TA required.

Annexes

Annex 1. Description of a Qualifying Firm

i) A registered firm in Kenya

ii) A firm that has Up-to-date tax indicated by tax certificate

iii) A firm whose three long-term experts drawn from within the firm

iv) A firm that has proven experience working with similar TA support

v) Firm that has had no integrity issues.

Annex 2. Job description of the TA team Leader/Quality Assurance

The key responsibilities of the TA Team Leader/QA will be to provide:

a) Technical and management support to the Project in the area of business development including financial access and value chain commercialization and competitiveness; policy development and domestication based on learning and experience from Kenya and east African region.

b) Capacity and organizational development.

c) Coordinate input from the short- and long-term TA support.

The TA Team Leader will work closely with the Project Manager, the Chief Programmes Officer the CEO and project management team and will be tasked to identify capacity needs to be addressed by the other long-term and short-term TAs. The TA Team Leader’s input will be continuous for 5 days per month for the first two years and 2 days per month for remainder of the project period.

The specific responsibilities will be:

i) Together with the project management and in consultation with branch project managers and other longer-term TAs, identify and compile strategic needs for technical longer term and short-term support for the Project and develop specific ToRs for short term TAs;

ii) Identify and contract suitable short-term TAs from the TA consortium pool to address the identified needs.

iii) Perform quality control and quality assurance of short-term TAs’ advisory inputs based on specific assignments.

iv) Support the planning, organization and follow-up action on resolution of bilateral review meetings Monitoring the implementation of the financing agreement between HiHEA and SIDA

v) Assessing the status of implementation of outcome and output objectives to ensure implementation remains on course

vi) Support the review of all project documentation to ensure quality and validity of information to be shared

vii) Deepen the knowledge on results planning and monitoring, evaluation and lesson learning

viii) Function as a team leader for Technical Assistance support.

ix) Participate in relevant events including workshops, field visits, reviews, evaluations, and other activities as required.

Professional qualifications

The TA Team Leader/QA must:

a) Hold at least a master’s degree in subjects relevant to enterprise development and have at least 15 years’ experience in fields related to rural development including environmental conservation.

b) Have broad managerial experience of coordinating a team of experts to undertake tasks in project cycle management

c) A wide knowledge and experience on the Kenyan economy and functioning of the administrative units and systems of the Kenya Government and non-governmental organizations.

d) Be fluent in English with excellent writing and verbal communication skills.

e) Have broad knowledge in all topical areas on SME development and particularly in areas where short-term TAs will be engaged

Candidates with the following merits shall have added advantage:

i) Are conversant with multidimensional approaches to poverty reduction, as well as good governance, as preconditions for development.

ii) Are conversant and familiar with research methods for development

iii) Have higher than average knowledge in project cycle management

iv) Have knowledge on advocacy and advisory talents and proven ability to work effectively with representatives of different groups in society such as communities, the private and civil society sectors and representatives of government and international organizations; and

v) Have proven experience working on similar assignments in the region.

Annex 3. Job description of the long term TA Business Development lead

The key responsibilities of the TA programme lead will be to provide

a) Technical capacity on the whole aspect of market systems development in the perspective of the financing partner of the project

b) Leverage on short-term TA to deepen capacity of project implementers on market systems dynamics.

Working with the project manager TA market system Lead’s input will be continuous for 5 days per month for the first two years and 2 days per month for reminder of the project period.

The specific responsibilities will be:

i) To provide technical support in business development within the project target sectors of waste management, agriculture and services with a focus on micro small enterprises.

ii) Guide on the capacity needs assessment of all the beneficiary cohorts

Support and guide on the development of the key project implementation strategies and guidelines as may be determined during inception

iii) Supported by short term TAs, enhance the capacity for the integration of cross-cutting issues of environment, gender and human rights in programming

iv) Identify key technical needs within the project outcome areas with a view to mobilizing needed short-term TA to enhance the capacity of the implementers and where necessary the beneficiaries

v) Support the development of guidelines for the procurement of innovations/technologies

vi) Support the customization of existing curriculum for the acceleration groups

vii) Support the enhancement of capacity on the whole concept of aggregation among the project implementers and CBOs/cooperatives

Professional qualification

The Project Business Development Lead (PBL) must

i) Holds a master’s degree in development studies or equivalent and have at least 15 years working and managing development programmes

ii) Has qualification and experience in digital systems

iii) Has more than 10 years of programme advisory and management

iv) Demonstrated capacity to lead in context specific application of Market Systems Development (MSD) approach

v) Have broad knowledge on rights based approach to development

vi) Have broad knowledge on integration of environment in implementation of development programs

vii) Has demonstrated experience promoting and building capacity of value chain development

viii) Be fluent in English with excellent writing and verbal communication skills.

ix) Have broad knowledge in all topical areas on SME development and particularly in areas where short-term TAs will be engaged

Candidates with the following merits shall have added advantage

i) Have proven knowledge on project appraisal and assessment

ii) Have a track record of deepening knowledge among development agents and communities

iii) Has practical experience of supporting and managing innovations

iv) Has working knowledge on SIDA supported interventions

v) Has known experience in project implementation negotiations

Annex 4. Team of Short-term Technical Assistance

The key responsibilities of the short-term technical assistance team will be to undertake short term tasks/assignments to be identified by project management and long-term TAs that require specific skills that would not be provided by the long term TAs.

The short-term TAs will work closely with theme leaders on agreed tasks and monitored by the TA Team Leader.

Specific responsibilities

Support the deepening of knowledge on assessed capacity needs among the project staff with particular focus on”

i) Market systems development,

ii) Gender inclusivity,

iii) Human rights and advocacy,

iv) Business resilience to environment and climate change and

v) Digitization in project management and implementation.

Professional qualifications of the Team members

i) Master’s degree related to business development and at least 10 years’ experience in supporting development of enterprises

ii) At least a master’s degree and 5 years’ experience in natural resource management

iii) At least a degree in social science and 10 years’ experience in human rights in programming

iv) A master’s degree in information and communication technology and at least 5 years’ experience in digital work in programming

v) Individuals who have experience working is such arrangements will have added advantage

3.13 Application Process: Interested individuals or firms should submit the following:

• A detailed proposal outlining the approach, methodology, and timeline for the assignment.

• A financial proposal detailing the cost of services in KES.

• CVs of key personnel highlighting relevant experience and examples of similar assignments undertaken.

3.14. Anti-Corruption and Safeguarding

Hand in Hand Eastern Africa strives to fight corrupt practices within its operations and the same is expected of its vendors, contractors and service providers. HiH EA staff are therefore prohibited from accepting any gift/s, consideration or benefit/s of any kind which may constitute illegal or corrupt practices, either directly or indirectly, as an inducement or reward for the award of a contract.

HiH EA and all its employees undertake to create a safe environment for our members and to prevent any form of exploitation or abuse. We are committed to acting in the best interest of our member’s and any willing vendor, contractor or service provider is required to commit and comply with our position on safeguarding.

Tagged as: Hand in Hand Eastern Africa, Kenya