Consultancy, Gender Responsive Skills Development (INT7740)
Oxfam is a global movement of people working together to end the injustice of poverty.

Background
The Women’s Economic Advancement for Collective Transformation (WEACT) project sits under the Economic Justice programmatic portfolio at Oxfam in Ghana. Among other themes, the portfolio works to maximize Oxfam’s impact on rights to sustainable and inclusive livelihoods through women economic leadership and engaging with the private sector, civil society actors and government at local, national, regional and global levels.

The WEACT project is funded by Global Affairs Canada under the Innovation for Women’s Economic Empowerment in Ghana (IWEEG) programme with the overall aim of enhancing economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive growth for women in Ghana. The initiative is in line with Canada’s Feminist International Assistance policy.

Oxfam  plays a facilitating, supporting and convening role to ensure the success of this initiative, bringing together seven key partners in a spirit of co-creation: SEND Ghana, Friends of the Nation (FoN), Women in Law and Development in Africa (WiLDAF), Tungteiya Women’s Association, Shea Network Ghana, Norsaac and Viamo. Government stakeholders include the Women in Agriculture Development Directorate at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, the Department of Gender at the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social protection in addition to private sector actors (Mondelez, The Body Shop, Cargill, Nestle, etc.).

Objective of the WEACT Project
The broader objective of the project is to enhance women’s economic empowerment, well-being and inclusive economic growth for women in the shea and cocoa value chains. The project will address the gender-specific barriers for women, including female youth, working in agriculture and in the informal economy of the shea and cocoa sectors in Upper West, Upper East, Northern, Savanna, Western and Western North Regions. The project will increase the ability of women and young women to individually and collectively overcome legal and social barriers; improve capacity for household members to recognize, reduce and redistribute unpaid work; increase access to innovative and viable gender-responsive business models; and enhance equal access to productive resources for women, including gender-responsive financial products and land ownership and use.

The project will also increase women’s agency and leadership to become economically empowered through multiple entry points. It will bring together many stakeholders working collaboratively and banking on their strengths and areas of influence to shift gender-related attitudes and behaviours across the agricultural sector. More than 5400 women (ages 18 to 60) will benefit directly from the project by receiving technical and financial support to empower them economically. 1,200 women will participate in dialogue spaces with traditional and religious leaders. 900 women will receive gender-responsive skills-development training, and 60% (540) of them will receive direct technical and financial assistance for the development of alternative livelihoods.

The Role
In line with the project objectives, we are seeking a consultant or team of consultants to design a gender-responsive skills-development programme on transformative leadership, business acumen, and negotiation skills, using an Oxfam Entrepreneurial tool kit. Considering the scope of the assignment Oxfam encourages joint bids from prospective consultants and/or firms.

The geographic scope of the project includes the Northern, Savanna, Upper East, Upper West, Western North and Western regions – and 9 districts of Ghana. The project specifically works with women in the shea and cocoa value chains in 50 cooperatives across 9 districts in the table below. 

The 50 cooperatives comprise 16 cocoa cooperatives and 34 shea cooperatives. The total number of members across the 50 cooperatives is 2,170 (800 in the cocoa areas and 1,370 in the shea areas).

Objective of the assignment
To develop a gender-responsive skills development training programme on transformative leadership, business acumen, and negotiation skills for women entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs in the cocoa and shea value chains in the Northern, Upper East, Upper West, Savanna, Western and Western North regions of Ghana.

The ultimate outcome of this assignment is to:
- Provide women with the needed skills and motivation to launch alternative/additional livelihoods.
The project will provide technical and financial assistance to 60% of the women trained on the programme to launch their businesses. The training is therefore expected to be practical and equip them with the needed skills to commence alternative/additional livelihoods.

Specific objectives

• Conduct a comprehensive needs assessment to select 900 women participants in 9 districts for a gender-responsive skills development training programme on transformative leadership, business acumen, and negotiation skills among the members of the 50 cooperatives.
• Adapt/contextualize the Oxfam Entrepreneurial training tool kit and integrate transformative leadership, business acumen and negotiation skills development into a gender-responsiveness training manual.
• Develop dynamic content for the training sessions including pictorial and video animations, role model stories and design a tailored training programme to be uploaded to an App for trainers to use.
• Conduct Trainer of Trainers (ToT) session on the gender responsive skills development training programme for 36 community level facilitators.

Scope of Work and Deliverables
The assignment involves 3 main work packages and consultants are expected to demonstrate their experiences and capacity to deliver on the various areas as outlined.