Consultant – Resilience Design Facilitator’s Guide Developer for SCALE – Remote

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Background:

The Strengthening Capacity in Agriculture, Livelihoods, and Environment (SCALE) program is a five year Associated Award funded by the USAID Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance (BHA) through the Technical and Operational Performance Support (TOPS) program led by Save the Children US. SCALE is designed to further improve the impact, sustainability, and scalability of BHA’s programming in agriculture, natural resource management, and alternative (off-farm and non-farm) livelihoods in emergency and non-emergency settings. Specifically, the program focuses on sustainable and climate sensitive approaches that foster resilient agricultural systems, and enhance income opportunities within or outside agricultural systems. This program is managed through Mercy Corps’ Agriculture Technical Support Unit (TSU) and is in its fourth year.

Purpose / Project Description:

Develop a Facilitator’s Guide to accompany the Resilience Design in Smallholder Farming Systems technical manual.

Consultant Objectives:

The consultant will lead the design and development of a Facilitator’s Guide to support USAID/BHA-funded programs with implementing the Resilience Design (RD) in Smallholder Farming Systems approach. The RD approach document (“RD Manual”) has the technical content for how to apply the approach; the Facilitator’s Guide will be used by BHA-funded partners who work primarily in West, Central, and East Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia on food security programming.

Given the size of these programs, most take a Training of Trainers (ToT) cascading approach in order to train program staff from international and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), extension agents and community members. The consultant will need to consider this as they develop the Facilitator’s Guide. The consultant should have expertise in adult learning, instructional design and sustainable capacity strengthening and cascading methodologies in order to design a guide for users across different continents, who may have English or French as their second or third language, and who may have different education backgrounds and specialty areas.

Consultant Activities:

The Consultant will:

• Consult with SCALE for orientation to the RD Manual and summary of trainings to-date
• Review the RD Manual content in order to understand the RD approach
• Review past RD training agendas, facilitator notes, and notes from previous discussions with BHA-funded implementers to understand their interests and needs related to the RD Manual and Facilitator’s Guide to ensure needs are being met by the Facilitator’s Guide
• Conduct key informant interviews with select members of SCALE’s Technical Committee and select BHA-funded implementing partners to further refine needs and inform the approach for the Facilitator’s Guide.
• Produce draft Facilitator’s Guide outline for review by relevant stakeholders (such as SCALE staff, the SCALE Technical Committee, SCALE’s Resilient Agriculture consultants, and BHA-funded program staff)
• Draft Facilitator’s Guide
• Remotely pilot test the Facilitator’s Guide with at least one BHA-funded program
• Finalize Facilitator’s Guide based on feedback from pilot

Consultant Deliverables:

• Draft outline and suggested approach to the Facilitator’s Guide
• Draft Facilitator’s Guide for pilot testing
• Plan for remote pilot testing and process for soliciting and incorporating feedback
• Final Facilitator’s Guide for Resilience Design in Smallholder Farming Systems

Timeframe / Schedule:

Approx. 25 working days between April-December 2021

The Consultant will report to:

SCALE Program Director

The Consultant will work closely with:

SCALE Agriculture Advisor – Capacity Strengthening, SCALE Collaboration and Learning Advisor, SCALE Resilient Agriculture consultants, Agriculture and Environment TSU staff, and other SCALE staff

Required Experience and Qualifications:

• 5-10 years of experience in a relevant technical field
• Demonstrated experience designing and developing Facilitator’s Guides for use in global contexts with low literacy or illiterate populations (preferably experience with smallholder farmer populations)
• Expertise in participatory adult education training methodologies
• Experience facilitating trainings for adults in diverse contexts, including with low literacy or illiterate populations
• Familiarity with Resilient Agriculture techniques, preferred

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Achieving our mission begins with how we build our team and work together. Through our commitment to enriching our organization with people of different origins, beliefs, backgrounds, and ways of thinking, we are better able to leverage the collective power of our teams and solve the world’s most complex challenges. We strive for a culture of trust and respect, where everyone contributes their perspectives and authentic selves, reaches their potential as individuals and teams, and collaborates to do the best work of their lives.

We recognize that diversity and inclusion is a journey, and we are committed to learning, listening and evolving to become more diverse, equitable and inclusive than we are today.

Equal Employment Opportunity We are committed to providing an environment of respect and psychological safety where equal employment opportunities are available to all. We do not engage in or tolerate discrimination on the basis of race, color, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, sexual orientation, national or ethnic origin, disability (including HIV/AIDS status), marital status, military veteran status or any other protected group in the locations where we work.

Safeguarding & Ethics Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our stakeholders and to international standards guiding international relief and development work, while actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and MC’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.