Job Description
1. Background

Women and youth face challenges in accessing finance because of perceived risk, lack of business entrepreneurship, lack of financial literacy and other technical skills, lack of reliable and defined markets and market linkages, lack of skills to put together business plans, lack of tangible bank acceptable assets and/or marketable guarantees for collateral.

ZADT, with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO) designed and is implementing a three-year Creating Adaptive Unique Systems for financing Entrepreneurial Youth and Women (CAUSEWAY) Project whose objective is to improve access to finance for youth and women in peri-urban and rural areas of Zimbabwe who are implementing sustainable and commercial business enterprises that improve and increase their household incomes and food security.

Specifically, the project provides financial literacy training to facilitate increased access to appropriately structured finance for youth and women involved in agribusiness initiatives. This is premised on the theory of change that if women and the youth who are traditionally excluded from mainstream economic opportunities are adequately capacitated, they will establish viable businesses which lead to improved productivity, food security, employment creation/decent jobs, increased incomes and improved standard of living. The capacitation is in the form of entrepreneurship skills development, financial literacy, as well as business planning to assist in accessing finance.

The Zimbabwe Agricultural Development Trust (“ZADT”) is a not-for-profit Zimbabwean Trust which was established and registered in 2010 with the objective of providing business development services and soft loans to smallholder farmers and/or agriculture value chain actors working with and for the benefit of smallholder farmers including women and youth in Zimbabwe. The ZADT Fund has been providing mainly working capital and capital expenditure credit facilities through local financial institutions comprising of commercial banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs).

2. Assessments of the Impact of the ZADT CAUSEWAY Revolving Fund on women and youth funded directly

Impacts of developmental programmes on smallholder farmers can only be properly measured and accounted for after a period which can be from three years onwards depending on the nature of the intervention. For projects which have short gestation periods, such as poultry, impacts can start being observed earlier. ZADT assesses the impact of the CAUSEWAY Revolving Fund on women and youth who access funding directly from financial institutions or are linked to the borrowing value chain actors.

3. Request for Proposal

The ZADT would like to engage a Consultant (individual or firm) to undertake an assessment of the benefits of the ZADT’s CAUSEWAY Revolving Fund on the women and youth farmers. The Consultant will sample funded women and youth and analyze project performance

The ZADT is therefore requesting a detailed technical proposal (including the budget) from interested consultants to undertake this study. The applicants are expected to highlight in the proposal their profile, previous experience, methodology, the team and work plan.

Duties and Responsibilities
4. Duties of the Consultant

In consultation with the ZADT Monitoring, Evaluation Accountability and Learning (MEAL) Officer, the Consultant will be expected to perform the following key tasks among others;

▪ Designing data collection tools.
▪ Sampling - Purposive sampling will be done for target provinces. The Consultant will discuss and agree with ZADT on aspects which will be covered by the survey. Estimated number of beneficiaries to be interviewed will be no more than 100. ZADT will provide lists of beneficiaries.
▪ Conducting the survey – Consultant will interview the funded women and youth using developed tools.
▪ Data entry and cleaning preferably using SPSS or any appropriate and use-friendly software.
▪ Data analysis.

5. Report writing

The report will detail the study findings which includes an assessment of project performance against outputs, outcomes and impact indicators as per the project log frame; lessons learnt and recommendations on the way forward.


Qualifications and Experience
6. Competencies & Experiences

The Consultant (Individual or firm) will be expected to have the following qualifications
▪ At least an MSc Degree preferably in development studies, agricultural economics or social sciences;
▪ Able to work independently.
▪ Able to communicate in English and either Shona or Ndebele;
▪ Demonstrated and proven previous experience in undertaking socio-economic surveys;
▪ Knowledge of SPSS or a similar package which can handle socio-economic data;
▪ Competence in data analysis techniques includes the use of descriptive and inferential statistics.