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Climate Smart Agriculture and Farmer Field School Consultancy
Concern Worldwide

Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organization that strives for a world free from poverty, fear, and oppression. We deliver life-saving and life-changing interventions to the world's poorest and most vulnerable people. From rapid emergency response to innovative development programming, we go to the hardest to reach places to make sure that no-one is left behind.


 Duty Station: Khartoum
 Closing Date: 03 Nov 2020

 
 Background:

Background.

Concern Worldwide is an Irish based international development and humanitarian organisation, whose mission is to help people living in extreme poverty, achieve major improvements in their lives that last and spread without ongoing support from Concern. In Sudan, Concern supports conflict-affected communities in West Darfur, West and South Kordofan states.

 

Concern has secured funding from the European Union Trust Fund (EUTF) to implement a three-year project known as, Building Resilient communities in West Kordofan (BRICK) in West Kordofan state. The aim of the project is to strengthen communities’ resilience to shocks and stresses, especially the most vulnerable households, within Abyei-Muglad, Keilak and Meriam localities. The programme will be implementedby a consortium consisting of Concern and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNCIEF) in partnership with National NGO partners and in collaboration with the relevant State Ministries in West Kordofan state. In this integrated project, UNICEF will support Education and WASH sectors, while Concern and its partners will intervene in health, nutrition, food security, and livelihoods sectors.

 

Concern ensures that technical standards and guidelines are followed in the implementation of its projects.  This includes empowering staff and communities with the technical knowledge to achieve the project results. Therefore, Concern plans to develop Farmer Field Schools (FFS) and Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) manuals to be used by frontline staff. The manuals support the rollout of CSAandFFSactivities at the community level to improve agricultural practices and better prepare communities to manage shocks and stresses.

 

Climate Smart Agriculture.

 

In the BRICK project, Concern will support communities to manage risks, stresses and shocks that affect their livelihoods. The major shocks and stresses in West Kordofan state are mainly climate related,such as droughts, extended dry spells, floods and seasonal rainfall variability. Increasing people’s capacity to adapt their food production systems to these effects of climate change is vital to increasing their food security and resilience. Promoting Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) is one way to help people do this. CSA is a set of farming practices contextualised to the specific climate risks of a given agro-ecological context, focusing on sustainably increasing agricultural productivity and incomes while adapting and building resilience to climate change and reducing the emission of greenhouse gasses. CSA features prominently in Concern’s food security programme in Sudan as a core element of its resilience strategy. Concern has produced several documents, technical briefs and position papers on CSA defining CSA and explaining how it fits within Concern’s wider strategy of supporting the extreme poor. Through this consultancy, Concern plans to produce a CSA manual tailored to the local context and appropriate to the needs of the frontline staff working in the BRICK programme in particular and other interventions across Sudan.

 

The CSA promotion in the BRICK programme will focus on the following areas:

  • The promotion and multiplication of improved (drought-tolerant) seed varieties for sorghum and pearl millet;
  • Improved agronomic practices around plant spacing, planting date, and weed management;
  • Integrated soil fertility management (ISFM) to improve soil fertility combined with soil and water conservation techniques such as Conservation Agriculture (CA);
  • Integrated pest management (IPM) to manage crop pests and diseases;
  • Post-harvest management (PHM) techniques for safe storage of crops produced;

 

Farmer Field Schools (FFS)

 

The Farmer Field School (FFS) approach was developed from the experience that farmers learn better, when they take part in their own learning and make observations in the field. The approach combines both the ecology and non-formal education to afford farmers opportunity to learn about their farming, share experiences, besides learning from each other. The FFS approach empowers the community as it is “learning by doing”, thus enabling farmers to be in charge of their education and strengthen their capacity in making key decisions in their farming activities.

 

The farmers learning under the FFS approach have the opportunity to choose the methods of production through exploration and discovery. The FFS approach also called “schools without walls”is generally composed of a group of farmers who meet regularly during the course of the crop season to explore different farming practices. By so doing, farmers have the opportunity to test new technologies in their own fields, assess performance and their relevance in particular circumstances. A field school should therefore be viewed as a process of learning and in itself is not a goal.

 

Concern’s plans to use the FFS approach to increase the uptake of different agricultural technologies under the BRICK project. The project will engage the services of 30 extension workers (frontline staff) who will be expected to work with farmers to establish FFS and facilitate their learning throughout the learning cycle. In order to do this, a need has arisen to develop a user manual on the FFS guidelines to be used by the frontline staff to support the farmers.

 

The contents of the FFS manual should logically flow according to the normal crop growing cycle, including the following areas:

  • Principles of FFS.
  • Materials needed for the establishment of a FFS.
  • Starting a FFS
  • Running a FFS.
  • Group dynamics

 



 
 Duties and responsibilities:

Purpose of the consultancy.

  • The purpose of the consultancy is to develop two manuals namely; CSA and FFS for use by thefrontline staff (Concern, Partners & Government) to deliver effective extension services to the communities in Sudan.

 

Specific objectives of the consultancy.

  • To gain a deeperunderstanding of CSA andFFS strategies, approachesand methods used in Sudan.
  • To contextualise the training manual according to theCSA and FFS principles and practices in Sudan. 

 

Key activities.

  • Develop a work plan and a schedule for the assignment.
  • Review the relevant literature, including Concern’s documents, such asproposal documents and other technical guides.
  • Travel to the field in West Kordofan state and hold consultations with: 1) Concern staff, 2) relevant state ministry and 3) other stakeholders.
  • Update and submit the work plan.
  • Field visit to the project sites to gain an understanding of the actual context and consult with the communities and beneficiaries.
  • Produce the first draft of the manuals by the 15th day of the assignment after signing the contract.
  • Submit the final manuals on the 30th day of the assignment after signing the contract.

 

The specifications of the manuals.

The general specifications of the manuals include the following:

  • There shall be two separate manuals for FFS and CSA.
  • Each manual shall be between 25 – 30 pages, in length, on an A4 size paper.
  • The manuals shall be in English and tailored for use by the frontline staff;
  • They should include sections on the basic principles and concepts of CSA and FFS,the practices and methodologies, which are appropriate in the context of Sudan.
  • The manuals must acknowledge all sources where the information has been sourced.
  • The consultant must not plagiarise the work of third parties, but may use and cite them according to the international standards for such technical work.
  • Should use simple language (English) that can be easily understood by frontline extension staff.
  • Should include illustrations in colour where necessary.
  • The manuals should avoid complex technical jargon as much as possible.
  • The different technical manuals developed by Concern must form the foundation for the development of the manuals.
  • The final manuals in English shall be produced and submitted to Concern in both soft and hard copies.

 


 
 Minimum Qualification, Skills and Experience Required:

Concern seeks the services of a qualified, competent, experienced and highly motivated Sudanese nationals or organisation to develop the CSA and FFS manuals as specified in this TOR. Specifically, the lead consultant should possess the following qualifications:

  • PhD/Mastersdegree in Agriculture, Agricultural Extension, livestock/animal resources, or any related course.
  • Experience in producing technical manuals (samples of previous work will have to be provided) or significant work experience in FFS and CSA.
  • At least 10 years’ teaching and consultancy experience;
  • Experience in and a good understanding of climate change, climate smart agriculture and agricultural extension methodologies.
  • Extensive knowledge of Sudan’s government agricultural extension policy, approaches and methodologies.
  • Experience in working in remote rural areas in Sudan.
  • Experience in and knowledge of working in Kordofan & Darfur areas is highly valued.
  • Ability to effectively use computers.
  • Excellent spoken and written English and Arabic.

 


Key deliverables.

  • A detailed work plan for each manual for the entire assignment period;
  • An updated work plan and schedule.
  • First of the manuals for review and comments by Concern:
  1. OneCSA manual (English).
  2. OneFFS manual (English).
  • Final of the manuals for review and comments by Concern:
  1. One CSA manual (English).
  2. One FFS manual (English).

 

Position location (Khartoum and West Kordofan)

  • The consultant will be expected to visit the project locations in West Kordofan to gain a good understanding of the context and will be expected to work closely with the Concern staff (Programme Director, FSL Advisor and field staff).  .

 

Duration of the consultancy.

  • The consultancy will last for 30 working daysbeginning from the date of signing the contract.

 

Reporting and supervision.

  • The consultant will work under the technical supervision of the FSL Advisor and Programme Director and Area Coordinator will provide administrative management for Kordofan (while in Kordofan).

 

Application process.

Qualified and interested applicants are expected to submit their CV with the following application package:

  • The motivation for the position.
  • Indicating relevant experience for this assignment.
  • A technical proposal for the work.
  • A financial plan for the work, incorporating a tentative work plan.

The application package above must be added in the sudanjob motivation letter field when you apply.

 

Deadline for application.

  • Interested applicants are expected to submit their application package by November 3, 2020

Concern Code of Conduct and its Associated Policies.

Concern has an organisational Code of Conduct (CCoC) with three Associated Policies; the Programme Participant Protection Policy (P4), the Child Safeguarding Policy and the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Policy. These have been developed to ensure the maximum protection of programme participants from exploitation, and to clarify the responsibilities of Concern staff, consultants, visitors to the programme and partner organisation, and the standards of behaviour expected of them. In this context, staff have a responsibility to the organisation to strive for, and maintain, the highest standards in the day-to-day conduct in their workplace in accordance with Concern’s

 

Core values and mission. Any candidate offered a job with Concern Worldwide will be expected to sign the Concern Staff Code of Conduct and Associated Policies as an appendix to their contract of employment. By signing the Concern Code of Conduct, candidates acknowledge that they have understood the content of both the Concern Code of Conduct and the Associated Policies and agree to conduct themselves in accordance with the provisions of these policies

 

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