Job Description

Heifer International Kenya

Terms of Reference: Digitization Consultant

Heifer International Kenya has been operating in Kenya since 1981 with a Mission to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth and its Vision is “a world of communities living together in peace and equitably sharing the resources of a healthy planet”.

Using a values-based community development approach, Heifer works with communities to strengthen the local economy, diversify diets with better nutrition, and properly manage water and soil systems for future generations.

Heifer implements its projects through

1) Community development and

2) enterprise development approaches.

Each of the projects focuses on three priority directions, namely, strengthening and diversifying resource base, strengthening country program efficiency and increasing outreach and impacts through the utilization of innovative value chain systems.

Currently among Heifer’s portfolio is the Kenya Market-Led Dairy Supply Chain Project (KEMDAP), TRANSFORM, Accelerated Value Chain Development (AVCD) project, and the Hatching Hope Kenya Project.

ABOUT HEIFER KENYA PROJECTS

KEMDAP

KEMDAP is a 4-year project funded by the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) that was jointly designed by Heifer International, New KCC, Tetra Laval, Food for Development Office (FfDO) and Tetra Pak Kenya (Tetra Pak) and targeted 20,000 in the North Rift (Nandi, Trans-Nzoia, Uasin Gishu and Elgeyo Marakwet counties) and 10,000 in Upper
Eastern Embu, Meru and Tharaka Nithi Counties.

The project seeks to tap into the potential of small-scale dairy farmers in Kenya by building stronger and sustainable dairy cooperative societies.

To achieve this, KEMDAP focuses on addressing the underlying challenges that hinder small-scale farmers from increasing their dairy production, improving livelihoods and moving beyond subsistence dairy farming.

Various interventions are being undertaken, these include training of cooperatives, the board of directors on leadership, governance and business development; training of farmers on social capital, village-level group savings, gender equality among other relevant skills.

This approach is meant to nurture resilience and sustainability beyond the project life. To build sustainable farmer-owned agribusinesses, the project seeks to support the establishment of functional extension structures.

This entails supporting the 24 dairy cooperatives to recruit Community Facilitators (CFs), Dairy Farm Assistants (DFAs) and Extension Officers (EOs).

HATCHING HOPE KENYA

Hatching Hope Kenya is a partnership Project between Cargill and Heifer International, with the potential to reach 21 million people in 12-year as a contribution to 100 million people targeted globally during the same period.

In the initial three years, HHK will improve the livelihoods of 180,000 individuals (40,000 Households) through enhanced poultry production and create demand by increasing awareness and education of nearly 10 million people about the benefits of poultry production and consumption.

The HHK interventions are aimed at creating functional and profitable poultry businesses, closing the living income gap by 53 per cent per family in the Western region (Kisumu, Siaya, Homabay & Migori Counties) Central and Northern Rift regions of Kenya through improved access to financial services, production skills, business knowledge, strengthening market systems, group cohesion and functionality through the Value-Based Holistic Community Development (VBHCD) approach.

TRANSFORMATIONAL STRATEGIES FOR FARM OUTPUT RISK MITIGATION (TRANSFORM)

The goal of TRANSFORM is to sustainably strengthen Animal-Sourced Food (ASF) systems to prevent zoonoses, transboundary animal diseases, and antimicrobial resistance.

In alignment with the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), Cargill in partnership with Ausvet, Heifer Project International, and the International Poultry Council (IPC) with the funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), seeks to engage global market actors, from the backyard and industrial farmers to their respective governments, in sustainably strengthening the animal-sourced-food system and enhancing global health security by preventing emerging zoonoses, trans boundary animal diseases (TADs), and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in major animal agriculture value chains in India, Indonesia, Kenya, and Vietnam via its Transformational Strategies for Farm Output Risk Mitigation (TRANSFORM) program.

The proposed strategy takes a systems approach including policy, practices, and data utilization. The approach seeks to prevent threats by eliminating the environmental factors that enable them through economically advantageous biosecurity measures, nutrition, and health management.

It will provide farmers and government data to build, monitor, and maintain low-risk environments and to mitigate threats that breach safeguards. Further, it seeks to establish policies that ensure appropriate antimicrobial use and best practices.

ACCELERATED VALUE CHAIN DEVELOPMENT (AVCD) PROGRAM

AVCD is a USAID-funded program under Feed the Future Initiative implemented in five counties of Kisumu, Homabay, Migori, Busia and Siaya. The project targets 17,000 smallholder households, to link them to the dairy hubs to access markets.

The project goal is to sustainably reduce poverty and hunger in Kenya with the immediate result of an improved agricultural enabling environment, expanded markets & trade, increased productivity of selected value chains and enhanced nutrition-related behaviours.

Heifer Kenya is building the capacity of producers and supporting them in the development and operationalization of Dairy Business Hubs (DBHs) to bulk, process and market milk and its products hence providing direct markets to the farmers.

Background of extension digitalization

Heifer is seeking to collaborate with innovators to digitize and improve the access and delivery of its extension services.

This strategy aligns with Kenya’s extension policy (NASEP 2008) that promised innovative approaches, including a pluralistic approach in extension service provision involving various actors from the government as well as the private sector, use of information and communication technology (“ICT”) services and provision of a favourable
environment to facilitate the use of the ICT services.

Problem statement and proposed solution

In the past, Heifer has conducted traditional face-to-face farmer training in groups through the Trainer of Trainers model, which has relied on Peer Farmer Trainers (PFT), Community Facilitators (CF), CAVES and Dairy farm assistants (DFA) to deliver training content to its beneficiaries.

From most program evaluations, this model has been effective but rather costly and not sustainable in the long run. After direct project support, most of the trainers are no longer active since farmers only pay for tangible services like animal health but not trainingor advice.

Farmers have also been busy with other income-generating activities and therefore not always available for regular training that is organized during the day (when they are chasing competing interests).

This inconsistent or irregular attendance at training sessions contributes to the slow uptake of training innovations.

Also, the impact of COVID-19 has affected face-to-face extension service provision, hence the need for alternative approaches. An assessment by Heifer in September 2019 on farmers’ access to mobile innovation indicated that 91% of farmers have access to mobile phones and most of them find time in the evening and during their rest times to catch up with information updates and research.

Therefore, HPI considers investment in digital extension systems, linked to mobile phones as a key complementing option to deliver training modules and packages cost-effectively and sustainably. In our program designs, we are incorporating digital extension as a complement to face-to-face training.

The Rationale

The impact of COVID-19 on different agriculture value chains has demonstrated that digital solutions are a lifeline to create efficient and scalable solutions for farmers and the value chains in which they work. Heifer Kenya recognizes the important role of digital solutions in the future of agriculture and especially extension service and training delivery.

Heifer Kenya digitalization work is guided by a digital strategy, the strategy is tailored around five key pillars, these are;

a) Embracing human-centred solutions approach

b) Digitizing training content and making it accessible to farmers

c) Embracing innovative web and mobile-based solutions

d) Building a sustainable digital field force

e) Promoting digital capacity by enhancing digital skills within the organization

To achieve these goals there is a need for Heifer to embrace agile digital programming, technology innovation and partnerships to scale services for farmers.

It is against this backdrop that Heifer is looking to hire the services of an experienced consultant in the field of agriculture digitalization to lead and oversee the implementation of the Heifer digitization project.

Purpose of the Consultancy: The Digitization Consultant oversees the implementation of Heifer Kenya digitization activities in line with Heifer Kenya Digital Strategy.

General Objectives: The general objective of the proposed Digitization Consultant is to support the implementation of the Heifer Digitization Project and to coordinate the project activities.

Specific Objectives

Specifically, the Digitization Consultant will oversee the implementation of the following digitization activities.

a) Work with the Human Centred Design (HCD) technical consultant to conduct the HCD digitization needs assessment and offer technical support in defining e-learners user journey.

b) Develop the terms of reference/scope of work for the system development

c) Engage a system developer consultant: Develop an integrated web and mobile-based e-learning platform that consists of a mobile application; dedicated USSD, IVR, Chat rooms, and bulk messaging

d) Work with a consultant in charge of the establishment of the entrepreneurial digital field force i.e., recruitment, mentorship and training, equipping of the field extension staff i.e., Community Facilitators (CFs), Community Agrovet Entrepreneurs (CAVEs), Dairy Farm Assistants (DFAs).

e) Support content digitization efforts, including design work.

f) Coordinate content dissemination

g) Support user-centric awareness and sensitization on the application and benefits of digital e-learning platforms.

Scope of Work

Informed by the five pillars of Heifer Digital Strategy, the consultancy activities will be required in tailored combinations to meet the needs of Heifer projects through agile series of engagements designed by the consultant in collaboration with Heifer International.

The consultant shall provide a series of services and deliverables to Heifer on an ongoing basis within the overall scope of work.

The combinations of technical support services will include:

1. Managing the country digitization project work-plan, budget, risks and issues, including monitoring progress against the work-plan and communicate updates to the project team and Director of Programmes.

2. Communicate with the project management team, consultants and service providers, customers and project stakeholders to ensure continuing alignment with project objectives

3. Create and administer project plan identifying resources needed including assembling cross-functional project teams

4. Identify and track the projects’ risks; identify and escalate issues that could affect the outcomes of the project (drive resolution of escalated project issues), timeline or budget to the Director of Programmes

5. Plan, organize and conduct capacity development workshops, acting as workshop facilitator and trainer, draft workshop reports. Such workshops will promote the exchange of insights, experiences, peer-to-peer exchanges, technical expertise, dissemination of knowledge e.g., Human Centred Design (HCD) report validation and adaptation.

6. Analyze lessons learnt and put forward recommendations for improving the delivery of future projects and develop best practices within the team

7. Offer technical and troubleshooting support to Heifer Digital Platforms: Lead back-end and front-end development teams and resources who are working on the development and maintenance of Heifer Kenya Digital platforms. This will include the performance of hands-on troubleshooting activities.

8. Other key functions: Supporting (or) managing stakeholders (co-operatives, extension workers etc.), project teams and partners; Reporting on program and project status on monthly basis; Facilitating project meetings and producing meeting minutes; Creating and maintaining supporting project documents.

Supervision and Coordination

Under the managerial oversight of the Director of Programmes in Kenya and the supervision of the Information and Communications Officer, the incumbent will execute activities to scale up the Heifer Kenya Digitization Portfolio and to provide support in the implementation of Heifer Kenya Digital Strategy in close collaboration Project Managers, Consultants and Partners.

Duration of the Work

The maximum number of working days required for the assignment is up to 108 days spread over nine months, with the possibility of extension for a second year based on the consultant’s satisfactory performance, project’s needs and funding availability.

Progress Controls and Payments

Payment will be made on a periodical basis per the number of days worked and upon satisfactorily achieved deliverables.

All payments are subject to clearance and approval in accordance with Heifer procurement guidelines.

Expected Deliverables

• Inception report


• Project work plan


• Monthly and quarterly progress report


• End of project report

Qualifications and experience

Candidates will be assessed against the following

Minimum Requirements

a) Advanced University degree in computer science, social sciences, agricultural economics, or a related discipline.

b) At least 3 years of experience in the design and support of innovations around digital agriculture technology

c) At least 3 years of relevant experience in at least two of the following areas of work

• Digital agriculture (ICT in Agriculture or digitization), especially if working with development organizations (INGOs)


• Capacity assessment or development of Agriculture-related issues and/or ICT-related


• Designing, developing, and deploying digital solutions


• Business model innovation, innovation methods (human-centred design)

Liaising partnerships

The application requirements

Only legally registered entities are eligible to apply and should submit the following:

a) Letter of expression of interest and demonstration of capability.

b) Cover Page (Name of organization/company, contact details – the name of the contact person, physical address, phone number, and email address).

c) A technical proposal detailing your understanding and how you propose to undertake the assignment, and work plan. Include at least three previous clients and their contacts to act as references and CV(s) of the person(s) to be engaged on the assignment.

d) Financial proposal–Applicants should submit a detailed budget in excel format with budget notes that explain the basis of the estimate for each line item (in USD and KSh).

e) The successful consulting firm will be required to produce the following documents before entering into Independent Contractor Agreement (ICA) with Heifer;

• Certificate of Incorporation or Business Registration Certificate.


• A Partnership Deed if you are running a partnership business.


• Audited financial statements for the last three years.


• Valid CR12 Certificate


• KRA online PIN Certificate.


• Tax Compliance Certificate.


• Certificate of Incorporation or Business Registration Certificate.


• Physical location including town, building, room number and postal address.


• Directors’ / Partners’ personal guarantee.


• Trade reference and clientele list including their respective contacts.

All applicants should submit their applications to procurement-ke@heifer.org with the subject line labelled ‘DIGITIZATION CONSULTANT’.

The closing date for applications is Friday 15th October 2021.

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