A- Background and Program Context

Rated by Impact Matters as the #1 nonprofit creating impact in the category of reducing poverty and by the National Coffee Association as the 2020 origin nonprofit of the year, TechnoServe leverages private enterprise to link people to new information, capital, and markets. It has equipped over 400,000 smallholder coffee households across Africa and Latin America to improve their incomes by boosting production, improving quality, promoting social and environmental stewardship, and facilitating linkages to premium markets. TechnoServe develops innovative approaches and builds relationships with both corporate and public partners to enable more smallholder coffee households to achieve livelihood security.

In Ethiopia, TechnoServe is leading a five-year training program to support Nespresso in fulfilling the company’s 2020-2030 strategy and deepen the company’s existing partnerships with exporters and wet mills, expand Nespresso’s supply of high-quality coffee, and align the incentives of important partners throughout the value chain. Under this “Phase 3” of the AAA Program in Ethiopia, TechnoServe will build on the success and learnings of the previous eight years while adding new innovations.

In alignment with TechnoServe’s Gender Policy and Nespresso’s Gender Strategy, the program will seek a positive shift in gender norms and women’s economic empowerment to ensure women and men financially benefit from the investments in the sector. This includes a focus on fostering equal opportunities for women farmers to participate in the AAA program, supporting women’s increased control over coffee income and participation in decision-making at the household and farm level, promoting equal opportunities for women to become members and leadership in cooperatives, and improving conditions for women workers at wet mills. Together, we see these interventions as key to driving behavior change to advance gender equality and recognize the contributions women are already making to the production and processing of coffee and build a sector that can have positive impacts on the lives of women and men in coffee-growing communities.

B- General Requirements & Scope of Work

In 2018, Nespresso and TechnoServe completed a gender analysis of a selected AAA Cluster in Ethiopia and identified an interest among women coffee farmers to acquire skills to generate income and participate in household financial planning. The objective of this consultancy is to design and pilot a set of household financial planning and decision-making modules for women and men in coffee-growing households, with low literacy and numeracy. In close collaboration with TechnoServe and Nespresso, the Curriculum Developer will create a locally-relevant training curriculum (2-3 modules) that can best meet women coffee farmers’ needs and interests. The training will need to incorporate non-traditional adult education techniques to support understanding and adoption of financial decision-making tools without aiming to provide comprehensive or sophisticated financial knowledge.

Tasks and Responsibilities

1. Identify learning goals, outline of the training curriculum, and approach to measure success. The results from the AAA gender analysis and more recent focus groups indicate women’s interest in building skills on a range of topics associated with household financial decision-making, including savings, joint decision-making, financial planning, and alternative income-generating activities. The consultant will review the results from the AAA gender analysis (2018), baseline/end line data, and focus groups with women and men conducted in 2021 to recommend a set of topics and learning objectives that are most relevant to the target population’s needs. Based on these learnings and in collaboration with TechnoServe and Nespresso, the consultant will define the topic and number of modules, the learning goals for each module, and the approach to measuring whether the participants effectively increased their skills and are applying the learnings.

 2. Develop the training curriculum including the content and facilitator guide for each module: The consultant will review existing TechnoServe training material on financial literacy and enterprise development as well as material from other organizations to design the training curriculum. The training curriculum refers to the content (ie. teaching material, tools) and facilitation guide (ie. lesson plans guiding the trainer on what the participants need to learn and how to deliver the content effectively) for each module. The curriculum should leverage as much as possible, existing material and must be adapted to low literacy populations. The consultant will work closely with the TechnoServe team to align the training curriculum with our adult learning training methodology and design.

 The training will be delivered to women and their spouses and must consider gender dynamics in its content and delivery methods. The training curriculum will follow these criteria:

1. • Structure: All lessons should adhere to the same structure (e.g., the same overall progression from the introduction of a concept to personal application), collaborating closely with the TechnoServe team.
   • Pedagogy: All lessons should be highly interactive, participant-centered, and cater to multiple learning styles. The program as a whole must use the situational and participatory instructional methodology and follow TechnoServe’s adult learning principles. Given the focus on the low-literacy adult population, the training will design simple heuristics or routines for financial decision-making that are well-suited for populations with low literacy and numeracy. The training should develop and leverage visual tools like pictures, non-traditional learning methods such as discussion groups as a tool for learning, other gamification, edutainment methods, etc., with the aim of making the presentation of complex information easier to comprehend, more attractive, and effective in reinforcing messages to individuals.
   • Locally relevant: The curriculum will be informed by global best practices, designed to be relevant and responsive to the Ethiopian cultural context and needs of the target population while maximizing the potential for adaptability to other contexts.

The consultant is responsible for coordinating the graphic design required for the teaching material. TechnoServe will be responsible for the translation of the training curriculum into Amharic or Oromifa, in coordination with the consultant.

3. Training of Trainers (TOT): The consultant will deliver a TOT to TechnoServe’s Agronomy Advisors who will train Farmer Trainers, the persons who are responsible for delivering the training to the target population. TechnoServe AAA field staff will support field testing by the consultant. The consultant will provide light support during the roll-out of the modules (February – April) and will guide the field team in collecting insights to assess the effectiveness of the training delivered as well as farmer feedback. TechnoServe will be responsible for overseeing the field team and monitoring farmer attendance.

4. Learning report and share findings: The consultant will develop a report describing the rationale for curriculum design, the learnings from the observations and roll-out of modules, and make recommendations for improving the curriculum and how for future

scale-up. The firm or consultant will share the findings of the work with relevant stakeholders in the Sidama region including government stakeholders from different administration levels and others institutions. TechnoServe will organize this meeting.

5. Finalize training curriculum: The consultant will update materials, incorporating learnings from the roll-out to ensure a locally relevant and field-tested training curriculum.

C- Deliverables

D- Period and Location of Performance

The recruited consultant(s) will carry out the mission in Ethiopia. The duration of the assignment is on/about December 10, 2021 – May 31, 2022. The project team will facilitate the consultant’s contact with the various actors in the project geography.

E- Required Skills & Experience

The contractor will demonstrate:

•  Master’s with at least 8 years of experience (or Bachelor’s degree with 12 years of experience) in gender & development, education or curriculum development, rural development, economics, or other relevant fields

• Demonstrated experience in the design and delivery of training curriculum for low literacy populations

• Experience in financial capability, enterprise development, or similar field

• Demonstrated experience working to advance women’s economic empowerment and/or gender equality, preferably in rural settings

• Experience working in Ethiopia required

•  Proven ability to work within limited time constraints in the preparation of high-quality documents

• Proficiency in English required

• Must have extensive experience working in rural Ethiopia

F-  Submission Process and Evaluation of Proposals 

4.1 Form and Content of Response

Candidates meeting the aforementioned criteria and interested in being considered for this consultancy should submit a one-word document (with a maximum of 6 pages) with the following contents:

•    A maximum one-page cover letter summarizing the applicant’s interest and capacity to implement the assessment.

•    Sample work plan with project milestones that details how and when the contractor proposes to deliver the Scope of Work.

•   A description of knowledge and experience related to the areas of the Scope of Work

•   CV(s) and a summary of the contractor or team’s experience in curriculum development, women’s economic empowerment, financial capability, and/or enterprise development.

•   List of three professional references we may contact who can attest to your experience and expertise in gender and social inclusion. Include contact information (daytime phone numbers and email contacts).

•   List of the three most recent relevant assignments that you have undertaken, including a description of why these are relevant to this RFP and what learnings were drawn from that assignment. Please include one example of a similar training assignment (e.g., lesson plan, agenda, the outline of curriculum).

•  Detailed budget to deliver the scope of work (Estimate 30 – 35 days of LOE).

*Optional, outside of the page limits, applicants may choose to submit one example of a relevant assessment report recently completed or any other document that demonstrates strong writing ability as a separate attachment. All documents will be handled with the utmost confidentiality.

All proposals shall also:

•  Remain valid for a period of 90 days from submission.

•  Be in the English language.

•  Provide requested payment terms and conditions.

•  Include a contact name, email address, and telephone number to facilitate communication between TNS and the submitting independent consultant/organization.

•  If an applicant is an organization, provide a brief outline of the organization and services offered, including:

o    Full legal name, the jurisdiction of incorporation, and address of the company

o    Full legal name and country of the citizenry of company’s President and/or Chief Executive Officer

o    Year business was established

4.2 Criteria for Selection

The evaluation of each response to this RFP will be based on the criteria set out below. At the sole discretion of TechnoServe, the top proposals may be selected for follow-up questions.

•   Experience and past performance (as demonstrated in the applicant’s proposal and based on the reference check) – 50%

•   Work plan & milestones – 25%

•   Cost proposal – 25%

TechnoServe reserves the right to award the contract to the consultant or firm whose proposal is deemed to be in the best interest of TechnoServe and the Donor. The consultant or firm with the winning proposal will be notified in writing. Applicants who are not selected will also be notified.

TechnoServe will not award a contract to any bidder where there is an indication of a lack of business integrity.