Ministry of Agriculture
REQUEST FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST (CONSULTING SERVICES-INDIVIDUAL CONSULTANT)
Country: Malawi
Project Name: Sustainable Agriculture Production Programme II
Assignment title : Targeting, Gender and Social Inclusion Specialist.
Reference no.: 019/SAPP 11/TGSI/INDCO_1/2024/25

1.0 Background

The Sustainable Agriculture Production Programme II (SAPP II) is a 7 years programme with a start date of 13th March, 2024 and an end date of 30th March, 2030 The programme is financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), European Union (EU), Adaptation Fund, United States Agency for Internation Development (USAID, Malawi Government, Private Sector and Beneficiaries. The total programme cost is US$53.336 million. IFAD finances USD 18.083 million (34%) of the total programme cost through a grant. The Government of Malawi (GOM) finances USD 8 million (15%) of the total programme cost through taxes, office spaces and staff salaries.

SAPP Il builds on the lessons and achievements of the first phase, and will promote increased production and productivity of climate smart and nutrition sensitive smallholder farming systems (both crops and livestock), sustainable use of natural resources, and effective marketing through private sector engagement. SAPP Il will focus on increasing productivity beyond subsistence levels with a commercialization drive. The programme will be implemented in Mzimba North and South, Dowa East and West, Lilongwe East and West and Balaka districts.

The Sustainable Agriculture Production Programme Il intends to apply part of the proceeds to procure the services of a highly motivated and experienced Targeting, Gender, Nutrition and Social Inclusion Specialist.

2. Job Purpose.

SAPP Il is inviting applications for the position of Targeting, Gender, Nutrition and Social Inclusion Specialist tenable at the PMU in Lilongwe. The Targeting, Gender, Nutrition and Social Inclusion Officer will be responsible for ensuring the programme targeting is fully inclusive regardless of gender, age and all other vulnerabilities. He/she will ensure that the programme has a clear strategy and action plans for Targeting, Gender, Nutrition and Social Inclusion and that the strategies have a clear mechanism for measuring results

3. Key Responsibilities and duties.

1. Develop the guidelines for Identification of EPAs including community driven processes and validation across the 4 districts and oversee the process for quality. This will include ensuring District teams are well organized for community mobilization including the Socio-Economic Assessments, community entry, situation analysis, social and institutional mapping, wealth ranking, and assessment of existing community groups and beneficiary selection process as well as capacity building of Groups to ensure inclusion of the project’s target groups as described in the PDR and PIM
2. Advise PMU on approaches that will ensure that the programme avoids elite capture in the process of implementation; How?
3. Ensure the SAPP II start-up activities on Targeting, Gender empowerment, Youth, Nutrition and Social Inclusion ensure mobilization of beneficiaries’ targets for women (40%), youth (30%) and social inclusion are achieved.
4. Ensure the development of the SAPP II Targeting strategy and summary targeting guidelines (max 5 pages) for Districts to use to use in identification of beneficiaries while working with the District Extension, Youth and Community Development/ Gender and Nutrition officers
5. Ensure the development the Gender Equality, Youth, Nutrition and Social Inclusion (GEYNSI) Strategy to guide the roll out of the, gender transformative approaches, leads on required technical assistance
6. Undertake a gender training assessment to inform the training content and deliver trainings. Organize staff training on Targeting, gender transformative approaches, nutrition, youth empowerment and social inclusion training for PMU and District Lead officers in the 4 districts. in line with the IFAD and Government of Malawi policies and guidelines, develop a summarized version that will be printed and shared with service providers and stakeholders;
7. Participate in the review of project proposals from would be service providers and provide advice to PMU with regard to their ability to meet targets for women (40%), youth (30%) and social inclusion.
   Work closely with M&E Specialist to ensure that reporting formats and planning tools and facilitates reporting that of gender, youth and nutrition data ensuring marginalize groups data;
8. Provide inputs on the Beneficiary identification data Form working with the
9. Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, to ensure sex and age disaggregated data and household bio data is collected at start-up. Ensuring the Baseline includes the Empowerment Indicator and Nutrition module to measure gender and nutrition outcomes.
10. Work with knowledge management and communication officer to ensure that knowledge management products of SAPP Il programme promote gender, youth and social inclusion
11. Participate in regular field visits for supervision of the programme; and
12. Assist in any other duty as required.

4. Qualification and Experience

1. First degree in social science or a related discipline. Those with Master’s Degree in a related field would have an added advantage;
2. Minimum of five years of experience in similar job with projects supported by development partners;
3. Proven experience in designing and implementation of gender and social inclusiveness strategy;
4. Experience in the sphere of rural development project management and implementation, in particular a good basic knowledge of project M&E systems, will be a distinct advantage.

5. SELECTION METHODS.
A consultant will be selected in accordance with the individual consultant selection (ICS) method set out in IFAD’ Project Procurement Handbook that can be accessed via the IFAD website at www.ifad.org/project-procurement.

6. Method of application
Interested and qualified candidates should send their applications together with copies of certificates, CVs and names of three traceable referees clearly indicating the position being applied for on the email heading (for emails) and on envelopes (for hard-copies) not later than 11th October 2024 (16:30 hours) to:

The National Programme Coordinator
Sustainable Agriculture Production Programme II (SAPPI)
P.O. Box 30217
Lilongwe 3
Email: rexbaluwa@sapp.mw/sdimas@sapp.mw