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Call aimed at professionals with experience in gender mainstreaming, gender in organizational development, capacity building with a gender perspective, business development in rural agricultural areas, with small farmers, agribusinesses and/or cooperatives.

Organizational Background

Root Capital invests in growing agricultural businesses so they can transform rural communities. These companies buy crops such as coffee, cocoa or beans from small farmers. With growth, they become drivers of impact that can increase incomes, create jobs, empower women and youth, keep the peace, and preserve vulnerable ecosystems.

We provide these companies with vital resources: access to capital, business and technical partners, financial training, and conservation practices. We work in difficult-to-serve geographies where others don't. To date, we have distributed $ 1.5 billion to improve the lives of more than ten million people in farming communities.

Women in farming communities face barriers that men do not generally have. Typically, they are not landowners and have more limited access to capital than men. Without these resources, women cannot prosper and remain trapped in a cycle of poverty. When climate change causes crop diseases many women lack the resources to help them recover and experience even greater levels of vulnerability.

Sustainable prosperity for themselves and their family is even more difficult to achieve. In addition to this, women do not have or have limited access to advisory services to improve their business and financial practices that contribute to smart business growth. Root Capital promotes continuous improvement in the social performance of our clients in order to advance gender equality and climate change.

The Women in Agriculture Initiative (WAI) is consistent with Root Capital's commitment to act as an ally in comprehensive development for agricultural companies, and with the use of a combined financing approach, taking advantage of complementary financial and non-financial tools, to increase rural incomes, provide stable jobs and contribute to the economic empowerment of women.

With twenty years of experience providing financing to small agricultural businesses, Root Capital has learned that sometimes credit alone does not help them grow and become stronger. Therefore, in addition to access to capital, it offers financial, agronomic, business intelligence, climate resilience, and gender and youth training and advice in difficult-to-service geographies. Companies that receive our advisory services learn to implement best business and financial practices for smart growth and continued success. We use a practical and participatory learning methodology, since our goal is for company staff to acquire new knowledge and skills and be able to implement them in the short term.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Root Capital currently has offices in Costa Rica, Kenya and Mexico with associated offices in Nicaragua and Peru. Root Capital clients are located in more than 13 countries in Mexico, Central America, South America, East and West Africa, as well as Southeast Asia.

Main Objective

Train and advise cooperatives and agricultural companies in gender equity and gender inclusion using Root Capital's participatory training methodology. Develop personalized advice for clients based on diagnostic information that positively impacts their equity, inclusiveness, and resilience.

Main Responsibilities

• Carry out gender gap diagnoses that include measuring business performance in various management areas and identifying strengths, weaknesses, and potential development opportunities to influence work plans and a gender equity plan for clients.
• Prepare reports and write responsive recommendations based on diagnostic results and develop a personalized gender equity training and counseling plan with clients.
• Provide gender equity advisory services and training to clients in accordance with the Root Capital methodology and in coordination with clients on issues that include, among others: good practices for inclusion in agribusiness policies and practices, adapted modules for women (such as financial literacy for women), the impact of climate change and women, entrepreneurship, leadership and organizational development, etc.
  • Keep records of workshop attendees, evaluate training results, and prepare activity reports.
  • Note: Your role as a facilitator may be in a centralized event or workshop where multiple clients or organizations attend, or in conducting a 1-1 session with an individual client at their offices. You can lead sessions or serve as a secondary facilitator to support the workshop / session.

• Monitor workplace gender equity plans (including gender equity grants / small funding where applicable), document and validate strategies used, and advise clients on implementation.
• Contribute to the organizational monitoring of Root Capital by recording activities carried out with clients (using digital data collection tools and Excel), preparing monthly activity reports and capturing learnings.
• Contribute to external reports with key impact information, including results, challenges, lessons learned, customer success stories, and photos.
• Promote innovation through contributions to the development and piloting of new instruments, methodologies and training tools.
• Understand, integrate, model and effectively teach gender inclusive approaches and gender mainstreaming best practices to ensure that women participate and benefit equitably from advisory services and more broadly promote advocacy gender equity among our clients.
• Support the design and validation of tools and specific curricula for women and for the training of counselors.
• Serve as a resource and coach on issues of inclusion and gender. You may observe and provide feedback to other advisors, assisting them in planning and implementing advisory services with a gender lens.
• Coordinate with other advisors / team members to explain the GEA (Gender Equity Advisory) services a client receives when needed.

This role will work closely with regional management and the global WAI team.

Note: You must be willing to perform advisory services (one-on-one with a single client or multi-client workshops) online / remotely and in person.

Required Qualifications

• University degree in agricultural economics, economics, sustainable development, agribusiness, business administration, psychology, or related careers.
• Experience with gender mainstreaming, gender in organizational development, agriculture or sustainable development.
• More than 4 years of experience focused on gender policies or programs and capacity building with a gender perspective, particularly in rural areas
• 3-4 + years of experience in training and / or work with business development in rural agricultural areas and / or with small farmers, agribusinesses and / or cooperatives.
• Knowledge and application of participatory training methodologies, adult learning and facilitation
• Knowledge of administration tools including: MS Office Suite (especially Excel), Google Apps (email, shared calendars and collaborative documents) and Zoom.
• Focus on offering high-quality customer-oriented services.
• High capacity for planning, relational and organizational management.
  • Ability to meet deadlines
  • Ability to synthesize complex concepts and convey them clearly
  • Ability to generate trust and sympathy with customers effectively
  • Ability to assess training needs, plan, direct and execute training responsive to customer needs.

• Strong writing skills and ability to prepare reports or other documents as required.
• Team player, works collaboratively to design and deliver services / products.
• Commitment to the development of innovative solutions and results orientation.
• Identification with the mission, vision and leadership principles of Root Capital.
• Ability to travel and work in different parts of the country.
• Ability to manage your work independently with a high degree of accountability and proactive outreach for support as needed.

Duration

The consultancy takes place in 2023, with the possibility to be renewed the following year. The first period will be three months, allowing a process of integration and adaptation, carrying out an evaluation at the end of the period to assess the continuity of the consultancy until December 2023. Each month it takes an average of 10 days for work.

Selection

• 1st. Stage: Receipt of curriculum vitae or curriculum vitae accompanied by a cover letter.
• 2nd. Stage: First Interview
• 3rd. Stage: Final interview