TREYL Baseline Consultant

Practical Action has an exciting opportunity for a Consultant (Individual / Firm) in Kisumu, Kenya.
The Consultant will have an overall responsibility of conducting a baseline assessment under Practical Action Eastern Africa’s Transforming Rural Economies and Youths Livelihood (TREYL).
TREYL is a five year project Agriculture project working initially in Kenya’s Kisumu and Homabay counties with a possible scale up in other countries in the region.
The project aims at breaking the cycles of low productivity and increasing rural poverty, through a holistic and gendered approach which will enable young men and women to increase their income through Agri-business.
The baseline assessment is primarily intended to establish a robust account of the current situation in targeted communities in relation to the project objectives.
It will focus on increased engagement of young people in Agri-business as a viable livelihood option, increased in farm productivity from Agro-ecological practices and strengthened enabling environment.
The Consultant will report to the Project Manager – TREYL with technical oversight by the M&E team.
The project team will also accord him/her day to day support during the assignment for young men and women to engage in agribusiness.
The key tasks for this consultancy will be to:

Develop a detailed baseline survey proposal/inception report clearly demonstrating full understanding of the TOR, and proposed methodology and relevant instruments to achieve the objectives of evaluation.
Develop relevant tools for data collection.
Conduct desk review of program documents including proposal, and other relevant literature
With the support of Practical Action, the consultants will identify and interview key stakeholders including representatives from the County government
Field work: The survey will involve field visits to a sample of households, government and private stakeholders this will involve meetings, interviews or focused group discussions with main actors who will be involved in the project. The use of participatory tools for data collection and analysis is highly recommended. These will be discussed and agreed upon between the consulting firm and Practical Action.
Conduct a comparative analysis of the findings and present preliminary findings to Practical Action for review.
Finalize the baseline survey report. The consulting firm will prepare a 1st draft of the evaluation and subsequently a final version of the report taking into consideration feedback provided on the first draft.

Interested individuals / entities should have:

Extensive and demonstrated experience in the use of mixed methods approaches (integrating quantitative and qualitative data), statistical analysis and interpretation of results;
Experience using digital data collection methods, for example, Open Data Kit.
Holds an MSc or MA (preferably PhD) in agriculture, rural economic development or related field.
Demonstrated ability to lead and coordinate a multi-disciplinary team in Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning activities;
Excellent communication skills – both interpersonal and written. Example reports will be requested.

CLICK HERE for a detailed Terms of Reference.