Deadline: 24-May-23
UN Women is inviting proposals for strengthening economic and leadership opportunities of female farmers in rice value chain under the Credit Offsetting Rice Emissions (CORE) project.
Aligned with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Women is partnering with GIZ on its Fund to Promote Innovation in Agriculture (i4Ag) to economically empower women farmers in the rice value-chain in the context of climate change. This fund promotes innovations in the agriculture and food sector, focusing on six key areas of mechanisation, digitalisation, renewable energy, research and extension, cooperation with the private sector and agricultural policy.
Funding Information
- The budget range for this proposal should be INR 34,000,000 – 35,250,000 (Indian Rupees Three Crore Forty Lakh to Three Crore Fifty-Two Lakhs Fifty Thousand only) for 2.5 years for all three states.
- Timeframe: Start date and end date for completion of required services/results – June 2023 – November 2025
Outcomes
- Outcome 1: More women farmers in the rice value chain have increased access to climate resilient technologies, methodologies, and skills.
- Output 1.1 Increased participation of women farmers in the climate resilient training interventions by select technical partners /agricultural training organizations.
- Output 1.2 Increased capacity of select technical partners and relevant stakeholders in gender responsive design and delivery of training interventions, policies, and implementation.
- Output 1.3 Enhanced gender-responsiveness of selected activities of the overall GIZ project.
- Outcome 2: Women’s voice, agency and capacities are strengthened to transform climate sensitive agricultural practices into enhanced livelihoods (diversified economic opportunities, increased incomes, and resilience).
- Output 2.1 Increased knowledge of women farmers on financial and entrepreneurial skills including around production, procurement, processing, and consumption processes as well as economic benefits of climate sensitive agriculture.
- Output 2.2 Increased inclusion of women farmers in rice supply chains at the local, national, and international levels.
- Outcome 3: Strengthened availability of sex-disaggregated data to inform gender responsive climate sensitive agricultural practices.
- Output 3.1 Increased Sex-disaggregated data collection across all implementation activities of the overall project.
- Output 3.2 Increased cross-organizational knowledge transfer to inform responsive climate sensitive policies and practices.
Description of Services
- Outcome 1: This result area entails moblizing 5000 women farmers for their increased participation and leadership in the climate resilient training interventions by select technical partners /agricultural training organizations. It also includes capacity building of select technical partners and relevant stakeholders in gender responsive design and delivery of training interventions, policies, and their implementation.
- Requested services are:
- Identify and mobilize 5000 women farmers in rice value chain in select states for participation in the programme.
- Organize capacity building trainings for women farmers, through Training of Trainers (ToT) approach to raise awareness about gender constraints in effective participation and leadership of women farmers in rice value chains and ways of addressing them in the community.
- Training modules to be finalized in consultation with UN Women and the intellectual property rights with remain with UN Women.
- Establish a network of male and female champions at the community level to mobilize other women farmers to adopt gender-responsive climate-sensitive agricultural practices.
- Outcome 2: This result area entails building entrepreneurial skills of 2500 women farmers (out of 5000) in rice value chains for diversified livelihoods and increased incomes; facilitating their inclusion in rice value chains at the local, national and international level; as well as strengthening their voice, agency and leadership.
- Requested services are:
- Identify capacity gaps, barriers, and opportunities for diversifying women’s livelihoods in rice value chains.
- Organize financial and entrepreneurial skills training for women farmers leading to increased income generating opportunities in rice value chain.
- Facilitate women’s access to machinery and labour-saving technologies to move from production to aggregation, processing, and distribution.
- Facilitate women’s access to credit and innovative finance through creating linkages with banks/ financial institutions as well as investors.
- Outcome 3: This result area entails contribution to knowledge management, data collection as well as continued monitoring efforts under the project.
- Requested services are:
- Ensure sex disaggregated data collection and gender statistics for agreed indicators to measure the overall impact of the project.
- Organise multi-stakeholder dialogues (including women’s voices) including with government on best practices to show how women can economically benefit from and positively impact climate-resilient agriculture.
- Conduct scoping study/research on developing a model for scaling and replicability and scale-up in the rice-sector.
- Process documentation of the complete intervention.
Target Group
- 5000 women small holder farmers are mobilized to be a part of all project activities including trainings on newer agriculture techniques by consortium partners as well as data collection processes adopted by them.
- 2500 (50% of 5000) women small holder farmers are trained in entrepreneurial skills in rice value chains for diversified economic opportunities, increased incomes as well as strengthened voice, agency and leadership.
- Consortium partners implementing the project
- Relevant government institutions
- The criteria selection of target group and geography involves:
- Women farmers are defined as individuals who are engaged in agriculture (as work force and not necessarily having land titles)
- Small holder farmers are defined as those with less than 2.5 Ha of land
- Presence of consortium partners in the states/districts
- Presence of established/potential supply chain by consortium partners
Geographical Area
- The project will be implemented in two districts of three states each. While 2 states have been identified, third state will be finalized in the second year of the project in consultation with the consortium partners.
- Haryana – Safidon (Jind) and Fatehabad (Fatehabad) districts
- Madhya Pradesh- Mandla and Balaghat districts
- Either Andhra Pradesh or Telangana – two districts to be identified
Competencies
- Technical/functional competencies required – Organizational expertise:
- Five years of work experience on the issues of gender and women’s livelihoods particularly in agriculture, gender equality, women’s economic empowerment and its intersections with violence.
- Demonstrable experience of agriculture programmes, mobilizing and organizing rural women and women farmers on a large scale.
- Significant experience and expertise in creating/strengthening women farmers’ livelihoods and entrepreneurship opportunities in agricultural value chains.
- Significant expertise and experience in trainings/ capacity building on gender at the community.
- Demonstrable experience in advocacy initiatives with Government and other key stakeholders.
- Established networks and engagement with key government institutions, financial institutions and stakeholders enabling women’s access to markets.
- Ability to deliver efficiently large-scale mobilization and training programmes in a defined timeline.
- Documenting, analyzing the change in learning outcomes Monitoring & Evaluation tools.
- Understanding of the local context and functional competency in the local languages in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana/ Andhra Pradesh.
- Other competencies, which while not required, can be an asset for the performance of services.
- Demonstrable experience in policy engagement and research on gender and agricultural issues.
- Qualification of Team Leader
- Master’s degree or equivalent in Gender and Development Studies, Agriculture, rural Development or any Social Sciences or a related field.
- A Ph.D. or advance University Degree would be an asset.
- 8 years of experience in the field of in mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment concepts and approaches in rural development/agriculture projects.
- Significant expertise in developing capacity development programmes, gender modules as well as tools for gender mainstreaming and conducting gender trainings particularly in agriculture.
- Extensive expertise and experience in gender analysis, gender sensitive needs assessment and policy analysis in regard to agriculture.
- Expert management skills.
- Strong communication skills.
- Strong reading, writing and spoken skills of Hindi.
- Understanding of regional languages of the intervention districts.
- Qualification of Team Members
- Graduate degree or equivalent in Gender and Development Studies, Agriculture, rural Development or any Social Sciences or a related field.
- A Master’s degree and/or advance University Degree would be an asset.
- 5 years of experience in the field of in mainstreaming gender equality and women’s empowerment concepts and approaches in rural development/agriculture projects.
- Experience of handling similar projects in the field community mobilization and capacity development programmes.
- Experience of working in the project locations.
- Knowledge of socio-economic, cultural and political aspects of the intervention states.
- Stakeholder management skills.
- Strong communication skills.
- Strong reading, writing and spoken skills of Hindi.
- Understanding of regional languages of the intervention districts.
For more information, visit UN Women.