Short-term National Training Consultant

Terms of Reference for Consultants for design training workshop

Position Title:      Short-term National Training Consultant
Location:     Son La and Lao Cai
Period:     October 1- November 20, 2018
Inputs:     Approximately 11 working days
Reporting to:     Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) Manager

1.    Background

The Aus4Equality|GREAT project is a socio-economic development initiative working in Son La and Lao Cai provinces and funded through the Australian Aid Program in Vietnam. The Program aims to increase women’s economic participation and decision-making through improved access to markets and more effective engagement in the agriculture and tourism value chains in ethnic minority regions of North-West Vietnam. The objectives of the Aus4Equality|GREAT are:

• Objective 1 - Empowering local women: Women living in local communities have increased capacity, space and choices to beneficially engage with agriculture and tourism businesses.
• Objective 2 – Inclusive businesses partnerships: Selected private sector actors within the agriculture and tourism sectors innovate to profitably and sustainably trade with more women entrepreneurs and operate in gender sensitive ways.
• Objective 3 – Improving sector governance and policy: Government agencies reinforce policies, and enact plans, regulations and services that enable more inclusive socio-economic development.

The programme will be implemented in Son La and Lao Cai provinces with total funding of over AUD 33 million. Of this, AUD 18,500,000 will be invested through multiple co-investment agreements.  Three funding schemes on Women’s Economic Empowerment and Policy Funding (Fund 1), Inclusive Business Funding (Fund 2) and Innovation Funding (Fund 3) have been designed to co-invest in promising solutions to achieve the Programme Objectives. In total the Programme will work with up to 70 – 80 partners in the two provinces. Provincial People’s Committees of Son La and Lao Cai are the Program owners. Within each Province a Project Management Unit (PMU) works collaboratively with CowaterSogema as the DFAT-appointed Managing Contractor to provide essential coordination, liaison and advisory roles.

Key results of this Program in each province include: increased income of at least 20,000 women of working age by 2021; creation of 2,000 new full-time (or equivalent) waged positions for women; 15 percent increase in women-led and co-managed formal businesses or cooperatives; and increased confidence, enthusiasm and self-esteem of 80 percent of women beneficiaries in families, and to leverage USD 3 million from the private sector for business activities in each province.

Major approaches to be applied in Aus4Equality|GREAT include (1) Market Systems Development (MSD), and (2) Women’s Economic Empowerment (WEE). MSD aims to create pro-poor inclusive and sustainable growth by changing the way whole sectors of the economy or industries operate, using a mix of methods in partnership with local market actors, whilst WEE will help women improve their ability to succeed and advance economically and have power to make and act on economic decisions at all levels (household, community, market and society). Applying these approaches, Program partners are encouraged to cooperate with market players in agriculture and tourism sectors, including for example (a) enterprises, cooperatives, social enterprises and foreign invested enterprises, who play key roles in the market development and product or service supply chains; (b) agencies who provide supporting services such as financial institutions, training providers or business advisory providers for business development; and (c) agencies facilitating a business enabling environment, such as government departments, business associations, professional associations, non-governmental organizations, universities/colleges, research institutes and mass organisations.

The programme will award non-reimbursable funding to Vietnam-based partners through competitive calls for proposals that propose innovative solutions for achieving the Program’s objective 1 “Women’s Economic Empowerment in Agriculture and Tourism” and objective 3 “Improving Sector Governance and Policy”.

The first Round of Call for Concept Notes for Fund 1 has been launched in Son La on August 10, 2018 and in Lao Cai on August 21, 2018. It is expected that between 10-15 shortlisted applicants applied for Fund 1 will be selected from the First Calls. The programme will provide 2 training courses of 3-day each in Son La and Lao Cai provinces for these shortlisted partners to develop their full proposal that well respond to opportunities for MSD and WEE as well as align with the priorities of the GREAT programme. Aus4Equality|GREAT Programme is seeking for an experienced Vietnamese trainer who will jointly develop and deliver the design workshop with the programe International Strategic Advisor.

2.    Scope of Work

The objectives of the assignment:

At the end of the training, shortlisted partner will:

• Get basic understanding about requirements for market system development, women economic empowerment, gender equality and social inclusion (GESI) approach and change process
• Have developed key contents of core sections in the full proposal template.
• Have identified interested partners for partnership to deliver the project results.

In collaboration with the GREAT’s Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning (MERL) and International Strategic Advisor the consultant is expected to perform 2 following tasks:

1)    To develop training programme and material in English in close cooperation with Aus4Equality|GREAT international technical Advisor and team. Tentatively, training should cover at least the following topics:

• Introduction of Aus4Equality|GREAT, MSD, WEE and GESI in the two target sectors of agriculture and tourism

• Aus4Equality|GREAT’s full proposal template and requirements which has been drafted by GREAT on:
  
  • Holistic MSD-based solutions, including multi-sector and multi-partner approach
  • Results in the form of indicators
  • Results map
  • Activities
  • Budget
  • Implementation management and arrangements including partnership
  • Risks

• Examples and group exercises;

• Other topics as considered needed by the trainers and/or Aus4Equality|GREAT team.

Aus4Equality|GREAT’s team will work closely with trainer’s team during the material development.

2)    Deliver the training: tentatively 2 training courses of 3-day each will be conducted in late October 2018 in Son La and Mid November 2018 in Lao Cai. The training includes introduction of concepts, tools and followed by partners’ activities of writing of the key contents of the full proposal using the full proposal template. Participatory and learner-centred methodology during the training will be applied to ensure the interaction between trainers and participants and among participants through group exercise, discussions.

3.    Deliverables:

Work with the GREAT’s MERL and Strategic Advisor to deliver the following deliverables:

• A package of training materials including training programme, training handout, trainer notes and exercises in English
• Training results: key contents of the core sections in the proposal template filled in by participating partners.

The draft training material package must be submitted to GREAT at least 1 week before the first training course for GREAT comments. The final training materials must be in place at least 3 days prior the first training.

4.    Qualifications

• Holding master’s degree in business administration, economics, economic development
• At least 5 years of experience in project management, design and or project evaluation
• At least 5 years of project experience in value chain development, market system development, private sector development, inclusive business. Experience in gender equity and social inclusion is an advantage.
• Experience in designing and facilitating similar training
• Excellent training facilitation skills

5.    Timing

The assignment is expected to start from 1 October till 30 November as presented in the below

6.    Application

Interested consultants should send their most update CV (with details of at least two referees), a short proposal to [email protected], indicating “Design training Workshop Consultant” in the subject, before COB October 5th, 2018.