GESI Strategy Lead for Cassava Transformation Project

THE CASSAVA TRANSFORMATION PROJECT

The Cassava Transformation Project is the Liberia national component of the European Union (EU)-funded West Africa Competitiveness Programme (WACOMP). WACOMP aims to support selected value chains at the national and regional levels to promote structural transformation and better access to regional and international markets while taking into account social and environmental concerns. The principal objectives of the programme are to strengthen the competitiveness of West African countries and enhance their integration into the regional and international trading system.

The WACOMP consists of one regional component and sixteen national components in West Africa. CDO is leading a consortium of local and international organizations comprising of Center for Enterprise Learning, Conservation Alliance, and Rural Integrated Center for Community Empowerment-Liberia to implement the project.

The goal of the project is to enhance the competitiveness and regional integration of Liberia’s cassava sector through a value chain approach focused on sustainable production value addition, entrepreneurship, sustainable markets, and enabling policies. This is borne out of the global and specific objectives of the call, which seeks to enhance West Africa’s competitiveness and integration through trade at the regional and international levels.

This project focuses on the second most popular crop in Liberia as the entry point to achieve this goal.

• Strengthened efficiency of actors engaged in the cassava value chain to improve access to inputs, and markets.
• Enhanced production, processing, and commercialization of the cassava value chain.
• Cassava value chain enhanced to be financially sustainable, and commercially viable.
• Policies, programs, and incentives to stimulate the commercialization of the cassava sector advocated for and implemented.

The project is being implemented in the South-East of Liberia specifically in Grand Gedeh, River Gee, Maryland, Grand Kru, and Sinoe counties.

The project is committed to gender equality and social inclusion (GESI). It seeks to empower marginalized groups such as women, children, unskilled youth, persons with disabilities, and also migrants who are grossly disadvantaged in their access to, and ownership of economic resources. The project team seeks to develop and utilize a context-based GESI plan to ensure gender mainstreaming and the empowerment of these identified marginalized groups, particularly women farmers.

In view of that, the project is seeking to engage the services of a consultant(s) or consulting agency with expertise in gender programming in development projects. Specifically, the consultant (s) will undertake the following key activities.

This assignment is expected to be undertaken within a period of 10 days.

Based on the scope of work, the consultant(s) or consulting agency is expected to provide the following

• A report on the GESI gaps identified in the project implementation documents.
• A GESI manual for the project team.
• Three training sessions for the project team on GESI principles strategies relevant for the project.