Training And Mentorship Support To At Least 50 Sector-specific Gslas For The ‘building Resilience Initiatives For Pastoral Communities In Kenya (brick

Terms Of Reference

Introduction:

Islamic Relief Kenya (IRK) commenced operations in Kenya in 1993, initially running the Orphan Sponsorship

Programme in Mandera County implemented through a local partner organization. It opened its full-fledged country office in Nairobi in 2004 and its first field office In Mandera in 2006 at the height of the drought in the Horn of Africa. Since then, IRK’s operations have expanded to other counties to provide humanitarian and development assistance to the most vulnerable and marginalized communities in Kenya.

In Garissa County, Islamic Relief Kenya is implementing a project called “Building Resilience Initiative for Pastoral Communities in Kenya (BRICK) Project”

The project prioritize the formation and building of Group Savings and Loan Associations (GSLAs) to help targeted households build economic resilience through small savings, access to microloans for business, and expanding their knowledge and understanding of financial services, financial management, leadership, and group governance. GSLAs offer community members a form of financial inclusion they may lack otherwise as the entry barriers for formal financial inclusion remain high in project locations. The GSLAs are a recommended mechanism for economic empowerment of vulnerable populations as they reduce barriers to entry and are more suitable for individuals and groups whose risk tolerance is low. IRW’s food security and livelihoods sector strategy presents a multi-tiered behavior change and technical assistance approach for empowering beneficiaries to establish a foundation of economic resilience. This will be achieved by: creating a real economy at the grassroots level, mobilizing key savings and other critical social safety nets and self-insurance mechanisms that protect key assets and stabilize food security; supporting the groups by providing access to loans to help them fulfill their legitimate basic needs in an honorable way; improving the management of, and maximizing value in, household production (agriculture, animals and small scale income generation activities); increasing financial and business literacy and overall market readiness to increase employability and entrepreneurialism while reducing risk and building economic confidence, self-respect and self-esteem by encouraging active productivity through careful experimentation of new ‘productive behaviors’. This approach is not strictly linear and some activities can be introduced concurrently rather than consecutively.

Fifty (50) sector-specific GSLAs have been formed in the target areas of Fafi,Balambala, and Garissa township sub counties.

The objective of the consultancy services

The Group Savings and Loan Association (GSLA) Consultant will be tasked with capacity building of selected women and farmer groups on the GSLA model in IRK target areas of Fafi, Balambala, and Garissa Township Sub-Counties. The groups will be trained on business management skills, savings, record keeping, group cohesion, business plan development, and leadership; additionally, peacebuilding and conflict prevention will be integrated into the training as important cross-cutting thematic areas relevant to the area. Using the IRW GSLA manual, the groups will be trained on the GSLA group procedures and rules including financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills training.

The GSLA training will focus on capacity building of the group members to pool savings together and access them through loans for wealth creation. The loans accessed should help the GSLA members to build their asset levels, start or expand their small businesses thus improving their livelihood. The Marketing Officer will monitor the progress of the groups regularly.

1. Delivery Strategy

The GSLA training will take a total of 30 days for the 50 groups (750 participants) and two extra sessions for each of the group officials for them to have practical and simulation after the training. The training shall be delivered by a consultant with wide experience in group saving and loaning, who is familiar with the local context, can evaluate client satisfaction with the training received during and after the service delivery process and feeds that impact data back into the design of future training courses, to continuously improve the training.

Training Methods will include

Lecture
Brainstorming
Discussions, open and group
Exercises, group, and individual
Short field visits
Case studies
Roleplay
Business games
Participants of the training will be members of functioning Group Savings and Loans Associations (GSLAs) selected from IRK target areas in Fafi, Balambala, and Garissa township Sub-Counties using the project selection criteria based on their vulnerability and available business opportunities.

2. Scope of Work

This scope of work describes activities to be performed and deliverables to be submitted by the consultant during the assignment period for the Training of the 50-sector-specific GSLAs in Garissa County.

The core objective of the assignment: To enable the selected groups from IRK Garissa County project sites to practically learn the group saving and loaning model, enabling participants to apply the same in their groups.

The specific objective of the training:

Is to enable potential women, youth, and smallholder farmers to pool their savings together and access them through loans.

By the end of the training course, the groups should have started saving meetings and collecting savings and thereafter access loans to do business.

The training will be designed to assist the groups to undergo the seven standard modules of GSLAs, among others:
 Module 1: Groups, Leadership, and Election

 Module 2: Social fund, Savings, and Credit policies

 Module 3: Development Association Constitution

Module4: First Savings Meeting and Record-Keeping

Module 5: First Loan Disbursement and Record-Keeping

 Module 6: First Loan Reimbursement

Module 7: Share-Out of Funds/ End of Cycle

 Create credit policies that will guide loaning activities to ensure the loans are utilized well and members can service their loans on time.

 Build strong independent GSLA that will be able to carry out their activities on their own with less support from the technical team.

3. Consultants Responsibilities

 Prepare training program and submit to IRK in advance. The program will be based and drawn from practical experiences with case-studies from similar training. The training program will incorporate best practice adult learning methodologies to effectively meet the training objectives. The program will also include an outline of sessions, objectives per session, methodology to be used per session and materials to be used.

 Prepare training materials/manuals in English, Swahili, and possibly local language in line with the IRW’s ABC manual. The training will be largely practical in nature, supported by accessible training materials/manuals, and be in line with the standard guidelines relating to conducting training sessions to communities.

 Conduct a pre-training meeting with the sample of the envisaged trainees so that the consultant is knowledgeable about the participants’ business sub-sectors, be familiar with the profile of the participants’ training needs analysis (TNAs), and be able to devise the training objectives to suit the requirements of the trainees.

 Conduct short field visits at the selected trainees’ businesses to gain a sound understanding of the type of businesses participants are in and tailor the training program accordingly.

 Capacity building of selected women, youth, and smallholder farmer groups on the GSLA model. The groups will be trained on business management skills, savings, recording, group cohesion, business plan development, and leadership.

The training will include a pre-and post-questionnaire developed in advance by the consultant to gather basic measurements of participants’ knowledge in the relevant areas.

4. IRKs Responsibilities

 Ensure that relevant clusters have identified persons/groups according to the pre-agreed selection criteria in the target areas before the training dates.

 Mobilization of the participant groups before the training days.

 IRK country staff will coordinate with the field office staff to ensure logistical preparations are clear and in place i.e., training venue and vehicle for movements to and from the venue by the consultant and the staff.

Provide refreshments and stationaries for the participants during the training period.

IRK will ensure there is follow-up support by project technical staff to manage their meetings and start savings. Follow-up will occur months after the first saving meeting with continuous support and guidance until the GSLA can run their saving and loaning activities independently.

5. Deliverables

 Appropriate Training Needs Analysis (TNA) tools and description of the methodology that engages trainees appropriately.

Training plan and materials reflecting, demonstrating a variety of training methodologies as described above, and in an appropriate language for the target audience. Methodologies selected should demonstrate local acceptability, best-practice related to adult learning, and ability to meet the over-arching learning goal and session-specific outcomes.

 A simplified business training manual for small business startups.

Detailed training report in the English language, to include a description of TNA activities and findings, pre-and post-test reports, both of individual trainees and summarized, of each specific training session, key lessons learned and recommendations for future development of this activity, list of participants, feedback on the suitability of the training approaches and suggested changes to the training methodologies to more suit the target audiences and recommendations for improvements.

 Follow-up plan for tracking trainees’ progress of an application for 3 months after the conclusion of the initial training sessions, with a focus on capturing levels of change in savings and loaning activities including a description of developing case studies from amongst the trainee cohort.

Time Frame
The engagement is planned to run for 30 days after the signing of the contract.

7. Qualifications

Advanced degree in Community Development, Agricultural Economics, Financial Management, Micro-Credit Management, Business Management, Entrepreneurship, or any other related field with over 5 years experiences in GSLAs, Micro & SMEs, among others.

 Experience in Group Savings and Loans model & community empowerment approach.

Relevant extensive experience in group savings and loaning training.

Experience in training marginalized groups especially women and smallholder farmers in rural parts of Northern Kenyat is an added advantage.

 Excellent report writing and presentation skills.

 Ability to pay attention to details.

Familiarity with Microsoft Office Suite for applications.

 The candidate should be available within the consultancy period.

Bid Document Comprises.
The bid document prepared by the bidder shall comprise of the following:

 Fully completed IRK Dossier - Questionnaire

The summary of the Consultant’s Profile with contact address and their CVs.

Valid Certificate of Incorporation in case of a company

Detailed Technical Proposal/Methodology

 Detailed Financial proposal i.e., BOQ with unit prices and total.

Any documents on previous similar services done in the past three years.

 ID/Passport Company Owner

 KRA PIN

 KRA t ax Compliance Certificate

Bid Submission.

You are requested to submit your tender documents to Islamic Relief Kenya Nairobi Office, Kirichwa road, next to Kirichwa Heights Apartment, Tel: 0727 531220 on or before 14th January 2022 at 11.30am