Research Consultant on Agricultural Co-operatives Challenges

Consultant

Contract

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Background

Introduction:

UN Women is grounded in the vision of equality enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations. UN Women work entails the elimination of discrimination against women and girls and the promotion of equality between women and men. Placing women’s rights at the center of all its developmental efforts, UN Women leads and coordinates the efforts of the United Nations system to ensure that commitments on gender equality translate into action. To accomplish this mandate, UN Women partners with government, private sector, and Non-Governmental Organizations in furtherance of gender equality.

In pursuit of its mandate, UN Women has partnered with the Standard Bank Group of South Africa in a programme called Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA). The implementation of Programme began in 2019 and is envisaged to come to an end in June 2022. The CSA programme promotes the development and use of gender responsive Climate Smart Agriculture materials developed by UN Women and is aimed at enhancing the capacity of women farmers in South Africa (Limpopo and Free State Provinces). Women farmers are provided and supported among other things with various interventions including agricultural inputs, training on CSA, skills development, mentoring and coaching and infrastructural development. Included in the supported organisations are women farmer cooperatives and the Department of Agriculture Land Reform and Rural development (DALRRD, which is supported on inclusive strategy development, training of extension service officers and UN Women supports the departments infrastructure development Programmes.

Despite all the interventions from various stakeholders including State interventions, women in farming still faces different challenges that negatively affect their participation in agriculture sector as revealed by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC, 2020) report on the impact of Covid-19 to agriculture.

Background:

The Co-operative Amendment Act (Act 6 of 2013) (RSA, 2013) defines “co-operative” as an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, or cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise organized and operated on co-operative principles”. Early co-operatives theory developments focused on three distinct forms of co-operatives, namely (i) Cooperative as a Form of Vertical Integration, (ii) Cooperative as a Firm and (iii) Cooperative as a Coalition. The early theories on the forms of co-operative theories have led to a renewed interest in cooperative theories emanating from the recognition that existing theories have failed to address many challenges facing agricultural co-operatives today.

Agricultural co-operatives refer to farming practice where farmers pool together their resources in specific operational activities in a cost sharing manner to reduce operational costs and other related costs.Agricultural co-operatives enable small holder farmers to operate at the same level as well-established farmers as it provides individual farmer an opportunity to access resources readily available to conventional farmers. The co-operative farming model provides opportunities to access bigger markets, which often requires high and bulky volumes, it facilitates access to inputs at bulk price rates not available to individual farmers buying small volumes and reduces machine hour use cost as large areas of land are combined to meet optimum economies of scale. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) report “Co-operatives and the World of Work no.1” suggests that co-operative enterprise model is a possible solution towards contributing to achievement of women economic and social empowerment, including fair representation of women in senior management jobs.

Hence most scholars consider this type of enterprise as a form of entrepreneurial activity in accordance with the principles of sustainable development.There are three million (3 million) co-operatives around the globe and about 13% of these co-operatives are found in Africa (Cooperatives-and-Employment-Second-Global-Report, 2017).

Climate change has exacerbated these challenges and women being majority players in co-operatives and in the agricultural informal sector have borne the brunt of challenges caused by climate change and Covid-19 pandemic has worsen the situation. Despite women contributing between 60% to 80% of the agricultural labour force in South Africa, they remain extremely vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The UNDP report on the Overview of linkages between gender and climate change found that Climate change is adversely affecting the lives and livelihoods of women and men, their families, and communities across Africa. The report indicates that the impacts differ in terms of region, type and severity and these maybe short-term disasters as well as longer-term changes in the climate system. The report also found that climate change affect women, girls , men and boys differently because of the pre-existinginequalities between them caused by gender-based roles in society and the resulting levels of vulnerability. The report concludes that climate change tends to amplify existing gender inequalities; and women, in particular, face larger negative impacts.

According to the Institute for Cooperatives and Community Economic Development (ICCED) briefing notes, South Africa constitutes 88% of co-operatives failure rate, with the success rate of 12% despite the large government investment into the sector1. Some of the reasons for the high failure rates as argued by ICCED is the narrow perspective adopted by communities when it comes to co-operatives, which is perceived as a tool to address communal social ills. The lack of utilizing legislative platforms created by government to encourage and motivate communities to mobilize and organize themselves into co-operatives is also identified as one of the drawbacks in the co-operatives development1. The recent work on co-operatives have shown that the structure of a co-operative while it may offer opportunities to thrive in the marketplace, it may as well create challenges that are totally different from those present in the individually owned farm. Consequently, co-operatives may perform differently than the individually owned farm may perform, both as individual economic businesses and in their effect on the wider agricultural economy. Whether an individual co-operative realizes its potential for improving economic performance and farmer welfare, it all depends critically on the co-operative structure and practices.

The early theoretical work has also demonstrated that setting clear operational goals for a co-operative involves striking a delicate balance, e.g., a co-operative need to balance the goal of increasing its net margin with the goal of offering members attractive prices. However, maximizing co-operative's net margin does not necessarily maximize members' welfare. Similarly, co-operatives have heterogeneous membership with different interests, aspirations and needs, therefore co-operatives need to balance benefits among various members to preserve its membership base. In some instances, differential pricing of goods and services to members may be necessary in some cases to prevent those co-operatives with better market opportunities from abandoning the co-operative, which could leave the remaining members worse off.Empirical evidence suggests that in countries where financial services co-operatives known as savings and credits co-operatives were successfully implemented, they proved to be an effective means to lift vulnerable people out of poverty and improved financial inclusion of the previously unbanked vulnerable groups. Countries that were able to successfully use financial services co-operatives include amongst others Kenya, Rwanda, Swaziland, Canada, Germany, China, and India.It is believed that given the successes in the financial services co-operatives, best operating practices and lessons maybe drawn and used towards building a thriving and successful agricultural co-operative in South Africa.

UN Women seeks to appoint an individual Consultant to conduct a research study on women farmers’ co-operatives challenges that lead to high rate of failure and the impacts of climate change to women lead co-operatives in South Africa and challenges within the SADC region. The research findings and recommendations are to be organized into a knowledge product on gender-responsive climate smart agriculture for co-operatives.

Objective of the assignment:

To conduct research study on women farmers’ co-operatives’ challenges that lead to high co-operatives failure rate and the impact and effects of climate change to women led co-operatives within the SADC region, with specific focus to South Africa.

• To conduct literature review on previous research work done in the same subject, summarise the result findings, recommendations and assess if there was any follow-up work done towards the implementation of the recommendations;
• To identify common challenges women, lead co-operatives face and the root causes to high failure on women co-operatives
• Assess the level of climate change awareness by women lead co-operatives;
• To identify the impact and effects of climate change to women co-operatives in agriculture;
• To identify and assess the effectiveness of mitigating measures provided by various stakeholders including State and Civil society organisation led interventions;
• Recommendations to reduce co-operatives high failure rates and measures to be put in place to reduce the impact of climate change on women led co-operatives.

Duties and Responsibilities

The purpose of this assignment is:

• To investigate, through literature review the impact and effects of climate change on women smallholder farmers, particularly women led co-operatives;
• To investigate the perceptions of women led co-operatives low success rate (Nationally/ Free State and Limpopo) about the impact of climate change on their farming businesses;
• To compile previous research work conducted in the same subject and assess implementation of the recommendations;
• To synthesize information and knowledge product on women led agricultural co-operatives challenges causing low success rates;
• To produce information on the impact and effects of climate change to women led co-operatives in agriculture and additional challenges brought by Covid-19 pandemic to the same group;
• To produce information on the level of climate change awareness by women farmers and co-operatives;
• To produce a comprehensive easy to read pamphlet containing all the information mentioned above for the benefit of co-operative in agriculture.

The purpose of this assignment is to provide technical implementation and programme management of the 3R Programme in South Africa which includes coordinating with the Global Coordinator, key national partners and stakeholders, knowledge management and communications efforts, as well as results-based monitoring and reporting, and financial management.

Scope of the work:

The Consultant will lead the technical implementation and programme management of the 3R Programme in South Africa for the two first months of 2022, and specifically:

• Manage the 3R programme implementation in South Africa;
• Develop Terms of Reference for Implementing Partners/service providers in relation with specific outputs of the project;
• Guide the selection process and recruitment of IPs/consultancy firms as requested in line with UN Women procedures;
• Liaise with the Global Coordinator, Steering Committee, donor, national partners and stakeholders to ensure the Programme results are achieved and resources are managed;
• Guide coordination with national partners and other stakeholders;
• Oversee the monitoring and reporting on the 3R Programme;
• Manage financial resources and supervise staff, as appropriate;
• Advocate and facilitate knowledge building and management and communication.

Time frames and Deliverables:

N.

Activities/Tasks

Time Frame

Deliverables

1

Complete/update the 3R Workplan in SA

By end of 1st Week

• Detailed 3R SA Workplan using the global template (detailed sub-activities, IP, timeframes)
• Presentation in a meeting with Global Coordinator and Programme Specialist

2

Develop TORs for IPs for implementing the activities under Output 1.1

By 1st week

• TORs

3

Follow-up on the procurement process for recruiting a IP/consultancy firm (call for tenders) to conduct the baseline study on the basis of the existing TORs (Output 1.2)

By 2nd week

• Contract for conducting the baseline study

4

Facilitate the organization of the National Steering Committee meeting

By 2nd week

• Agenda
• Invitations as needed
• Minutes of the meetings
• Integration of the recommendations in programme implementation

5

Contract a consultancy firm/IP for the mapping of existing care services and national-level feasibility studies (Output 1.2)

By 3rd week

• TORs
• Contract/partnership agreement/MOU according to UN Women procedures

6

Contract the identified IPs for implementing the activities under Output 1.1

By 4th week

• All documents for internal UN Women clearance processes (PGAMS and PAC) for IPs as needed
• Partnership Agreement with the selected IPs

7

Contract a IP for implementing activities under Output 2.1

By 4th week

• TORs
• Partnership agreement/MOU according to UN Women procedures

8

Contract a IP for providing technical assistance to develop and implement models and guidelines for care services and timesaving, climate-resilient, environmentally sustainable infrastructure (Output 1.2)

By 5th week

• TORs
• Partnership agreement/MOU according to UN Women procedures

9

Follow-up on the conduction of the baseline study (Output 1.2)

By 8th week

• Progress report on Baseline Study

10

Follow-up on partnership and implementation of activities related to output 2.3

By 8th week

• Initial report on the introduction of time saving technologies

11

Record and maintain documents on relevant 3R Programme activities, issues, and risks

ongoing

• Filing and record keeping system on Teams

12

Collaboration with the Global Coordinator and Programme Specialist

Ongoing

• Meetings and email exchanges as solicited

13

Handover to the new 3R National Coordinator

End of the assignment

• Final Report
• Folder with all documents and materials
• Presentation of implementation progress (ppt and meeting)

Competencies

Competencies:

Core Values:

• Respect for Diversity;
• Integrity;
• Professionalism.

Core Competencies:

• Awareness and Sensitivity Regarding Gender Issues;
• Accountability;
• Creative Problem Solving;
• Effective Communication;
• Inclusive Collaboration;
• Stakeholder Engagement;
• Leading by Example.

Please visit this link for more information on UN Women’s Core Values and Competencies: https://www.unwomen.org/sites/default/files/Headquarters/Attachments/Sections/About%20Us/Employment/UN-Women-values-and-competencies-framework-en.pdf

Functional Competencies:

• Strong programme formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation skills;
• Strong budget and finance skills;
• Strong knowledge of Results Based Management;
• Ability to synthesize program performance data and produce analytical reports in order to inform management and strategic decision-making;
• Strong analytical skills;
• Good knowledge of UN programme management systems.

Required Skills and Experience

Education and Certification:

• Master’s degree or equivalent in public administration, law, human rights, gender equality, management, social sciences or other related areas is required;
• A first-level university degree in combination with two additional years of qualifying experience may be accepted in lieu of the advanced university degree;
• A project/programme management certification (such as PMP®, PRINCE2®, or MSP®) would be an added advantage.

Recruitment Qualifications:

• At least 5 years of progressively responsible experience at the national or international level in managing and implementing complex and multi-component programme interventions with national partners, preferably related to economic empowerment;
• Experience in coordinating, implementing, monitoring and evaluating development programmes and projects;
• Previous experience working in the UN system is an asset.

Language Requirements:

• Fluency in English and local languages is required;
• Knowledge of the other UN official working language is an asset;
• Knowledge of the UN is an asset.

Note:

Please note that applications without a completed and signed UN Women P-11 form will be treated as incomplete and will not be considered for further assessment.

UN Women Personal History form (P-11) can be downloaded from http://www.unwomen.org/en/about-us/employment

UNWOMEN is committed to achieving workforce diversity in terms of gender, nationality and culture. Individuals from minority groups, indigenous groups and persons with disabilities are equally encouraged to apply. All applications will be treated with the strictest confidence.

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Added 2 years ago - Updated 2 years ago - Source: jobs.undp.org